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J.A.MACDO 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 

GIFT  OF 


Mrs.   Frank  A.  Miller 


DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

JAMES        A.        MACDONALD 


DEMOCRACY 

AND 

THE  NATIONS 

A  CANADIAN  VIEW 


*-*.<"' 


BY 


J.  A.  MACDONALD,  LL.D. 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


XT 


Copyright,  1915, 
By  George  H.  Doban  Company 


to  those  who  care  for  liberty, 

Democracy  and  Internationalism 

this  volume  is  dedicated 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/democracynationsOOmacdiala 


A  FOREWORD 

THE  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  release  ideas, 
rather  than  to  frame  an  argument. 

The  ideas  with  which  it  deals  have  to  do  with 
freedom  for  the  individual,  self-government  for 
the  nation,  and  peace  for  the  world. 

These  ideas  are  conceived  and  presented  as  in 
the  lives  of  men  and  in  the  history  of  nations. 
Liberty — the  right  to  will  and  to  choose — is  fun- 
damental to  moral  quality  in  personal  character. 
Democracy — the  right  of  a  free  people  to  gov- 
ern themselves — is  the  condition  of  national  free- 
dom. Internationalism — the  organization  of  free 
nations  into  an  international  partnership,  each 
with  its  place  in  the  sun  and  all  under  just  laws 
enforced  by  the  common  will — is  the  social  con- 
summation of  liberty,  democracy  and  fraternity 
in  the  world  community  of  free  nations. 

These  ideas  I  have  presented  many  times  and 
under  different  forms  during  recent  years :  some- 
times in  editorial  articles  in  The  Globe,  some- 
times in  addresses  from  public  platforms  in  Can- 
ada and  the  United  States,  but  always  in  the  in- 
terest of  ideas  rather  than  of  argument.  The 
practical  end  in  view  was  influential  in  deter- 

vii 


viii  A  FOREWORD 

mining  the  literary  form  of  the  chapters  in  the 
book,  as  well  as  of  the  addresses  which  are  here 
reproduced  in  almost  the  very  words  in  which 
they  were  spoken.  For  this  same  reason,  sig- 
nificant phrases,  in  which  root  ideas  are  ex- 
pressed, are  repeated,  in  order  that  the  ideas  may 
not  miss  fire. 

If  the  ideas  of  Liberty,  Democracy  and  Inter- 
nationalism are  made  more  vital  and  stimulat- 
ing in  the  minds  of  those  who  read  these  pages, 
the  purpose  of  their  publication  will  have  been 
abundantly  fulfilled. 

J.  A.  M. 

Toronto. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.    GEORGE    WASHINGTON    AND    THE 
ANGLO-AMERICAN  UNITY 

Unity  Through  Strife       ....  13 
The  Anglo-Saxon  Impulse        .        .        .17 

The  Celtic  Strain 25 

Self-Government :  Not  Separation    .        .  38 

Democracy  and  Unity        ....  45 

II.    ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  AND  THE  EN- 
DURING DEMOCRACY 

Lincoln 53 

The  Lincoln  Point  of  View      ...  58 

The  Neighbourhood  Idea  ....  68 

Canada's  Part  in  the  American  Conflict  75 

III.  CANADA  AND  THE  WORLD  PROBLEM 

An  Adventure  in  World  Politics      .        .  93 

Transforming  the  Empire        .        .        .  104 

After  the  War 114 

IV.  NORTH  AMERICA'S  WORLD  IDEA 

The  World  Idea 127 

A  Year  of  Contrasts         .        .        .        .136 

The  Partnership  of  Nations      .         .         .  145 


X  CONTENTS 


PAGE 


V.    MESSAGES  TO  THE  PEOPLE 

America's  Message  to  the  Nations  .  .  153 
Internationalism  and  the  University  .  .169 
Leadership  and  the  World  Crisis  .  .  187 
Canada:  Its  Tether  and  Its  Toll  .  .  203 
Christianity:  The  War:  The  Social  Prob- 
lem           221 

North  America's  International  Experiment  232 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON  AND  THE 
ANGLO-AMERICAN  UNITY 


UNITY  THROUGH   STRIFE 

THE  name  of  George  Washington  is  asso- 
ciated in  the  world's  mind  not  with  unity, 
but  with  strife.  That  name  recalls  division  and 
separation — the  division  of  the  English-speaking 
world  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  separa- 
tion of  the  American  colonies  from  the  mother- 
land of  Britain. 

But  Washington  was  not  a  man  of  strife.  His 
political  thinking  was  not  radical.  His  tempera- 
ment was  not  that  of  a  revolutionist.  His  in- 
stincts were  not  markedly  those  of  a  Social  Demo- 
crat, and  his  ideals  in  politics  were  not  primarily 
Republican.  Events  he  did  not  originate,  and 
conditions  he  could  not  control,  carried  him,  as 
they  carried  his  country,  to  the  point  where  revo- 
lution was  inevitable;  and  it  fell  to  his  lot,  as 
Chief  Executive  of  the  nation,  to  be  exponent 
before  the  world  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. When  revolution  justified  itself  by  its  suc- 
cess the  young  Republic  gave  to  him  his  due  in 
electing  him  the  first  President  of  the  United 
States  of  America.  Now  that  more  than  a  cen- 
tury has  set  his  name  in  the  discriminating  per- 
spective of  time,  the  quick  judgment  of  his  own 

13 


14        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

day  stands  approved  and  becomes  the  verdict 
of  history.  Out  of  the  confusion  and  darkness 
of  Anglo-American  strife  the  name  of  George 
Washington  emerges,  more  meaningful  now  than 
in  his  own  time,  the  signal  and  the  pledge  of  the 
Anglo-American  unity. 

Unity  is  indeed  the  real  note  of  Washington's 
life.  On  the  surface  and  for  the  moment  there 
was  clash  and  conflict.  Discord  and  strife 
seemed  to  fill  all  the  sky.  The  hoarse  cries  of 
bitterness  and  hate  were  the  loudest  tones.  But 
over  it  all  the  keynote  prevailed.  In  the  pauses 
the  common  chord  was  struck.  Out  of  all  the 
jarring  came  unison.  That  abiding  unison,  abid- 
ing through  the  past  hundred  years,  transformed 
the  alienation  that  prepared  the  way.  Discords 
rushed  in,  not  for  the  sake  of  discord,  but  that 
harmony  might  be  prized.  Revolution  and  sep- 
aration under  George  Washington  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  distressing  and  hurtful  though 
they  were,  will  be  understood  in  their  higher 
meaning  and  in  their  world  significance  only  as 
the  twentieth  century  affirms  and  makes  domi- 
nant the  supreme  conception  of  Anglo-American 
unity. 

Unity  was  not  a  world-note  in  Washington's 
day.  That  was  the  day  of  international  isolation 
and  of  the  ignorance  and  the  prejudice  isolation 
breeds.    That  was  the  day,  too,  of  national  ex- 


UNITY  THROUGH  STRIFE  15 

pansion  and  conquest,  and  of  the  selfishness  and 
the  fear  that  follow  in  their  train.  No  Briton 
to-day  is  under  obligation  to  defend  either  the 
spirit  or  the  method  of  the  jingoes  and  the  junk- 
ers who  dominated  politics  in  Britain  in  the  days 
of  George  the  Third.  Nor  is  any  American  now 
obliged  to  justify  the  extravagances  of  speech 
and  behaviour  of  the  political  iconoclasts  who 
held  the  colonial  stage  in  the  days  of  George 
Washington.  That  was  the  age  of  intense  dog- 
matism, in  State  and  in  Church,  and  of  the  spirit 
of  violent  secession  into  which  dogmatic  author- 
ity always  reacts  among  a  free  people.  The 
forces  of  that  age  were  centrifugal.  Fragments 
of  creed  were  thrown  off  and  produced  sects. 
Segments  of  philosophy  became  ingrowing  cir- 
cles of  inverted  ideas.  There  were  stir  and  move- 
ment everywhere,  in  Britain  and  in  America, 
in  politics  and  in  religion,  and  that  restless  indi- 
vidualism of  the  eighteenth  century  was  a  factor 
in  the  revolutionary  uprisings  in  Britain  and  in 
the  discontent  in  the  colonies  that  led  to  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence.  The  autocratic  ideas 
in  government,  as  the  aristocratic  ideas  in  so- 
ciety, were  divisive  forces  in  Washington's  day. 
The  world-note  was  not  unity. 

But  a  new  day  will  dawn,  dawn  for  society, 
dawn  for  the  world.  It  is  the  day  of  wider  hori- 
zons, of  higher  ideals,  of  nobler  motives.     For 


16        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

the  moment  the  storm-cloud  hangs  black  and 
menacing  all  around  the  sky.  The  thunders 
speak  of  death.  The  lightnings  flash  of  hell. 
Europe  is  bleeding  at  every  pore.  North  Amer- 
ica, in  all  its  nationalities  and  peoples,  has  learned 
the  meaning  of  Gethsemane.  The  world  itself  is 
broken,  its  civilisation  crossed  by  barbarism,  its 
glory  turned  to  shame.    The  sun  is  in  eclipse. 

But  the  night  will  not  come  back.  Dawn  will 
rise  with  day  on  its  shoulders.  The  jungle,  with 
its  tangled  fens,  its  fevers  and  its  beasts  of  prey, 
will  be  driven  further  back.  The  neighbourhood 
of  the  English-speaking  peoples  will  yet  be  an 
ensample  to  the  world.  The  desert  of  the  na- 
tions will  rejoice  and  blossom  like  the  rose:  the 
seas  will  no  longer  divide :  and  deep  in  the  heart 
of  all  classes  and  races  will  stir  the  sense  of  hu- 
man brotherhood  in  the  abiding  neighbourhood 
of  all  peoples. 

We  of  to-day  are  on  the  edge  of  a  great  new 
time,  a  world-time.  The  nations  of  the  English 
speech  and  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  tradition  when 
this  world-war  is  over  must  face  an  unprece- 
dented world-challenge:  the  challenge  of  all  the 
world  to  the  nations  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  im- 
pulse, that,  after  strife,  have  kept  the  peace  for 
a  hundred  years  in  the  Anglo-American  unity. 


THE  ANGLO-SAXON   IMPULSE 

THE  Anglo-Saxon  Impulse !  The  very  name 
"Anglo-Saxon"  carries  us  back  through 
fifteen  centuries  of  Europe's  history;  far  back  of 
the  England  we  know,  and  beyond  the  North 
Sea,  to  the  breeding-place  of  the  first  English- 
men and  to  the  home-land  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
tradition;  back  to  the  fifth  century,  to  Angli  and 
the  little  home  of  the  Angles  or  Engles,  in  the 
Province  of  Schleswig,  on  the  shores  of  the  Bal- 
tic, and  to  the  land  of  the  Saxons  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Elbe. 

There,  in  the  dim  twilight  of  Teutonic  history, 
far  from  the  incoming  currents  of  Roman  life 
and  civilisation,  the  primitive  idea  of  political 
self-government  sprang  up  and  organised  itself 
in  the  tribal  economy  of  the  people.  There  was 
held  the  township  meeting,  and  the  larger  repre- 
sentative assemblies,  in  which  not  the  leaders 
alone,  but  the  common  people  as  well,  held  their 
rightful  place  of  speech  and  vote.  There  among 
the  Angles  and  Saxons,  in  the  northern  forests  of 
Germany,  were  set  up  those  first  crude  institu- 
tions of  democratic  self-government  which  be- 
came common  to  the  Germanic  peoples  while  as 

17 


18        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

yet  the  Celtic  tribes  in  the  England  we  know 
were  bleeding  from  the  Roman  rods  and  carried 
the  galling  yoke  of  Rome's  military  despotism. 

That  original  Teuton  idea  was  the  germ  out 
of  which  grew  the  institutions  of  political  free- 
dom and  self-government  in  Britain  and  in  Amer- 
ica. When  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury declined  and  fell  into  decay  at  home  the  Ro- 
man legions  were  withdrawn  from  Britain. 
Then,  in  449,  came  the  seafaring  Engles  and 
Saxons  across  the  North  Sea,  bringing  with  them 
their  worship  of  the  Teuton  gods  of  Woden  and 
Thor,  and  their  political  ideas  of  democratic  self- 
government.  The  remnants  of  Roman  absolut- 
ism were  destroyed.  The  Celtic  tribes  were 
slaughtered  as  the  Belgian  people  have  been 
slaughtered  to-day.  A  new  Engla-land  was 
founded.  The  Anglo-Saxon  triumphed.  De- 
mocracy in  England  had  its  beginning,  and  from 
that  day  to  this  has  never  been  without  a  wit- 
ness. The  Witenagemot — the  Meeting  of  the 
Wise  Men — or  the  Great  Council,  or  the  Parlia- 
ment, even  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  feudal  des- 
pots, has  always  claimed  to  speak  as  representing 
the  people. 

The  Roman  Empire  itself,  enervated  by  war 
and  luxury,  declined  before  the  assaults  of  the 
sturdy  Germanic  tribes,  but  in  time,  all  over  Eu- 
rope, Roman  ideas  of  government  by  military 


THE  ANGLO-SAXON  IMPULSE  19 

force  prevailed  over  the  simpler  Teutonic  democ- 
racy. Ideas  triumphed  over  physical  strength. 
History  repeated  itself.  Roman  power  conquered 
Greece,  but  Greek  ideas  in  turn  impregnated  Ro- 
man literature  and  shaped  Roman  culture. 
Rome,  having  lost  her  virility,  yielded  to  Ger- 
manic arms,  but  victorious  Germany  was  Roman- 
ised. Roman  Christianity  triumphed  over  Teu- 
ton paganism.  The  Roman  idea  of  government 
by  military  autocracy  crowded  the  old  Teutonic 
ideal  of  self-government  out  of  its  own  German 
homeland.  Through  the  centuries  the  light  of 
democracy  was  kept  burning  in  the  lowlands  of 
Holland  and  in  the  highlands  of  Switzerland,  but 
elsewhere  Europe  was  given  over  to  feudal  tyr- 
anny. And  the  tragedy  of  Europe  to-day  is  that 
the  birthplace  of  democratic  institutions  is  under 
the  heel  of  a  Romanised  autocracy,  and  the  na- 
tion that  started  Britain  and  America  on  the 
high  road  to  political  liberty  has  given  its  own 
neck  to  the  half -Slavonic  yoke  of  Prussian  des- 
potism. 

But  in  Britain  the  Anglo-Saxon  idea,  brought 
over  by  Hengist  and  his  hordes  before  the  end  of 
the  fifth  century,  had  a  free  chance.  It  took 
firm  root.  Generation  after  generation  and  age 
after  age  it  grew  and  strengthened.  Sometimes 
in  the  centuries  of  feudalism  that  followed  the 
Norman  conquest  it  seemed  to  have  been  over- 


20        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

borne.  But  the  idea  of  freedom  never  died.  It 
survived  the  despotism  of  the  Plantagenets,  the 
autocracy  of  the  Stuarts,  and  the  dull  reaction  of 
the  Hanoverians.  Like  the  grain  of  mustard 
seed,  it  has  grown  into  the  tree  of  world-democ- 
racy, and  under  its  spreading  branches  the  free 
Parliament  of  Britain,  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  and  the  Parliaments 
of  the  self-governing  British  Dominions  on  all 
the  Seven  Seas  stand  together  the  exponents  and 
the  defenders  of  the  world's  political  democracy. 
Through  these  fifteen  hundred  years  of  conflict 
and  achievement  that  Anglo-Saxon  idea  has  been 
dominant  in  English-speaking  civilisation,  and 
its  unspent  impulse  is  to-day  the  organising  pow- 
er in  the  English-speaking  world,  the  secret  and 
the  strength  of  the  Anglo-American  unity. 

It  was  that  Anglo-Saxon  impulse  for  freedom 
that  first  sent  Englishmen  across  the  uncharted 
seas  to  America.  The  Royalists  came  to  Virginia 
with  the  aristocratic  blood  of  the  Cavaliers  of 
King  Charles  and  their  aristocratic  ideals  for 
Church  and  for  State.  For  that  aristocracy  the 
land  system  of  great  estates  and  the  social  sys- 
tem of  negro  slavery  were  natural  and  easy.  To 
New  England  came  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  with 
the  intellectual  arrogance  of  Cromwell,  and  the 
Puritan's  inextinguishable  spark  of  political  de- 
mocracy.   Through  the  colonial  days  Massachu- 


THE  ANGLO-SAXON  IMPULSE  21 

setts  returned  to  the  more  democratic  institutions 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons  in  England  before  the  in- 
coming of  Norman  feudalism,  while  Virginia 
had  more  in  common  with  the  English  landed 
aristocracy  that  forced  the  Magna  Charta  from 
King  John.  But  in  both  colonies  stirred  the  blood 
of  Anglo-Saxon  freemen.  The  discontent  of  the 
colonies,  that  gave  concern  to  statesmen  and  rul- 
ers in  England,  was  at  bottom  the  irrepressible 
impulse  for  self-government  which  Anglo-Nor- 
man Toryism  in  London  could  not  understand. 
In  the  light  of  history  even  a  blind  man  can  now 
see  that  revolution  and  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence were  inevitable.  The  Anglo-Saxon  im- 
pulse was  astir.  Neither  King  George  and  his 
reactionary  advisers  in  England  nor  George 
Washington  and  his  patriot  supporters  in  Amer- 
ica knew  of  any  other  alternative.  It  was  co- 
lonial subjection,  or  it  was  national  independence. 
Facing  the  risk,  suffering  the  loss,  paying  the 
price,  the  Anglo-Saxon  impulse  drove  on  to  revo- 
lution and  ended  in  national  self-government. 

But  the  same  blood  was  in  Englishmen  at 
home.  And  that  blood  told.  The  protest  of  the 
American  colonies  and  the  wider  democratic 
freedom  of  the  new  American  Constitution  re- 
acted on  the  British  situation.  Under  Walpole, 
Pitt  and  Peel  the  achievement  of  responsible  gov- 
ernment and  the  British  Cabinet  system  made 


22        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

"the  bounds  of  freedom  wider  yet."  Indeed,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  wild  excesses  of  red  republic- 
anism in  revolutionary  France  during  the  "Reign 
of  Terror,"  which  startled  even  liberal-minded 
leaders  like  Burke  and  Pitt  and  Wordsworth  and 
Burns  into  reaction,  the  mother  country  might 
earlier  have  outstripped  the  daughter  republic  on 
the  high  road  to  the  goal  of  Anglo-Saxon  liberty. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  the  United  States, 
under  Lincoln,  again  yielded  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
impulse.  Through  the  great  social  and  political 
upheavals  of  the  Civil  War  not  only  were  the 
pledges  of  liberty  and  equality  which  Washing- 
ton and  the  Declaration  gave  to  the  Republic  jus- 
tified, but  a  new  impetus  was  given  to  democracy 
all  over  the  English-speaking  world. 

In  the  opening  years  of  the  twentieth  century 
Britain  again  took  the  lead.  Against  one  of  the 
most  venerable  and  most  strongly  entrenched  in- 
stitutions of  autocratic  privilege  in  all  the  world 
the  determined  democracy  of  the  British  people 
went  up — a  stripling  David  with  five  smooth 
stones  against  an  armor-plated  giant  Goliath 
with  a  spear-shaft  like  a  weaver's  beam — and  de- 
mocracy turned  not  back  until  the  veto  power  of 
the  House  of  Lords  over  the  deliberately  ex- 
pressed will  of  the  responsible  House  of  Com- 
mons was  destroyed,  destroyed  forever.  That 
event,  one  of  the  most  stupendous  and  most  far- 


THE  ANGLO-SAXON  IMPULSE  23 

reaching  the  English-speaking  world  has  wit- 
nessed in  three  hundred  years,  gave  a  new  lead 
to  democracy  the  world  over.  Neither  of  the 
English-speaking  nations  in  America  has  yet 
gone  so  far.  In  the  United  States  there  is  an  ap- 
pointed life-service  Supreme  Court  and  in  Can- 
ada an  appointed  life-service  Senate,  with  their 
checks  and  balances  and  constitutional  vetoes  on 
the  people's  representative  will.  But  Britain  has 
taken  the  risk,  the  supreme  risk  of  democracy. 
The  deliberate  will  of  the  people  may  for  a  time 
be  delayed,  but  it  cannot  be  defeated.  And  in  the 
end  of  the  day  Britain's  way  of  the  larger  Anglo- 
Saxon  freedom  will  be  justified  to  her  children. 

In  the  crisis-time  of  19 14  that  Anglo-Saxon 
impulse  did  not  fail  the  British  peoples.  When 
Prussian  despotism,  having  destroyed  the  origi- 
nal Teuton  Idea  of  self-government  out  of  its 
ancestral  Teuton  home,  laid  its  heavy  hand  on 
the  liberties  of  democratic  Belgium,  and  lifted 
its  mailed  fist  against  the  democratic  world,  a 
united  Britain,  in  the  name  of  Celt  and  Saxon, 
and  for  the  freedom  of  the  little  peoples,  blocked 
the  way.  And  not  Britain  alone,  but  every  free 
commonwealth  of  the  British  faith — Canada, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  South  Africa,  and  even 
that  mighty  Empire  of  the  Oriental  faith  and  the 
alien  blood,  India — all  the  Britannic  forces  of 
the  world,  because  they  are  free  to  go  or  not  to 


84       DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

go,  took  their  stand  at  the  battle's  front,  against 
the  modern  Teuton  autocracy,  in  defence  of  the 
very  idea  of  political  freedom  the  Germanic  peo- 
ple gave  the  world.  That  is  indeed  the  supreme 
effort  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  impulse. 

On  the  wide  field  of  the  centuries  the  strug- 
gles of  democracy  have  been  many,  but  under  the 
Union  Jack  and  the  Stars  and  Stripes  their  im- 
pulse has  been  one.  The  struggle  has  been  for 
government  of  all  the  people  by  all  the  people  and 
for  all  the  people,  the  struggle  for  equality  of  op- 
portunity, the  democratic  struggle  for  social  jus- 
tice for  all  and  special  privilege  for  none.  That 
struggle  is  the  glory  and  the  greatness  of  Eng- 
lish-speaking civilisation.  Its  impulse  is  the  age- 
long impulse  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples.  That 
impulse  stirred  the  heart  of  George  Washington, 
himself  an  English  gentleman  to  his  finger  tips. 
That  centripetal  impulse  of  the  twentieth  century 
is  bringing  the  great  Republic  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  by  a  wide  compass,  around  to 
form  with  the  British  Empire  the  equipoised 
democratic  entente  of  the  Anglo-American  unity. 


THE  CELTIC     STRAIN 

THE  impulse  to  self-government  we  com- 
monly call  Anglo-Saxon.  The  term  is  con- 
venient, but  not  accurate.  In  American  democ- 
racy that  Anglo-Saxon  impulse  was  reinforced, 
if  not  dominated,  by  a  distinctive  Celtic  strain. 

That  Celtic  strain  came  into  ancient  history 
through  the  annals  of  the  Greek  classics.  The 
waves  of  Celtic  life  swelled  up  in  the  valleys  of 
far  eastern  Europe,  and  moved  westward  long 
before  Rome  emerged,  leaving  landmarks  here 
and  there,  in  south  and  north,  until  in  Gaul  it 
founded  a  civilisation  which  the  power  of  Im- 
perial Rome  could  not  utterly  destroy.  In  Britain 
it  established  a  type  of  character  and  tempera- 
ment unconquered  and  potent  until  this  day.  The 
Gallic  tribes  of  ancient  Gaul  and  the  Picts  and 
Scots  of  ancient  Britain,  against  whom  Caesar 
carried  on  his  great  campaigns  two  thousand 
years  ago,  were  the  Celtic  blood-forbears  of  the 
modern  "sea-divided  Gael." 

During  the  four  centuries  of  Roman  occupa- 
tion of  Britain  the  native  Celtic  population  was 
not  exterminated.  North  of  the  Clyde  and  the 
Forth  the  Picts  remained  defiant  in  their  High- 

25 


26        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

land  strongholds.  In  Ireland  the  Scots  were  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  Romans  and  their  Teutonic 
mercenaries.  After  the  legions  were  withdrawn 
the  Jutes  and  Angles  and  Saxons  took  possession 
of  the  conquered  country  and  called  it  England, 
but  Ireland  they  did  not  touch.  The  Saxon  in- 
vaders from  the  great  country  between  the  Rhine 
and  the  Elbe  slaughtered  most  of  the  native  Brit- 
ons and  then  married  their  wives  and  daughters, 
so  that  even  into  the  blood  of  the  English-born 
"Sassenach"  there  came  the  disturbing  Celtic 
strain. 

But  in  Wales,  in  Ireland  and  in  Scotland  the 
Celtic  strain  kept  its  colour  and  its  strength 
through  the  stress  and  storm  of  all  the  centuries. 
No  matter  what  happened  the  speech  of  Cymric 
or  of  Erse  or  of  Gaelic  would  not  die  out  from 
the  mountains  and  glens.  And  that  which  is 
deeper  than  speech,  stronger  than  law,  more  per- 
sistent than  custom,  that  mysterious  life-strain 
which  dominates  accidents  of  birth  and  admix- 
tures of  blood,  and  gives  to  the  man  or  the  na- 
tion a  personality  that  never  dies — that  Celtic 
strain  binds  to-day  the  many-blooded  life  of  those 
British  Islands  into  one  United  Kingdom,  and  in 
America,  through  three  hundred  years,  from  the 
Rio  Grande  to  Hudson's  Bay,  it  has  been  weav- 
ing the  mystic  but  prevailing  pattern  in  the  An- 
glo-American unity. 


THE  CELTIC  STRAIN  27 

In  the  seventeenth  century  tens  upon  tens  of 
thousands  of  hot-blooded  Celts  came  from  the 
Highlands  and  Islands  of  Scotland  and  from  the 
Scottish  settlements  in  Ireland  to  make  the  ad- 
venture of  life  in  the  wilds  of  America.  Even 
before  the  Cromwellian  wars  the  forerunners 
came,  guided  only  by  that  restless  instinct  that 
strains  at  the  leash  and  yearns  beyond  the  hori- 
zon-line of  settled  and  conventional  life.  In  the 
years  of  the  civil  wars  in  England  and  during  the 
Commonwealth  period  many  of  the  Celtic  peo- 
ples, who,  from  the  Saxon  days  on,  never  gladly 
suffered  the  language  or  religion  of  the  alien, 
were  made  prisoners  of  war,  some  of  them 
branded  on  the  shoulder  with  the  badge  of  en- 
forced servitude,  and  transported  across  the  seas 
to  America.  Scottish  names  have  been  carried 
in  honour  to  the  White  House  by  sons  whose 
forefathers  were  deported  from  England  in  the 
revolutionary  times  of  Cromwell  and  the  Stuart 
Kings.  When  the  American  colonies,  a  century 
later,  engendered  feelings  of  their  own  against 
England  and  the  House  of  Hanover,  the  scars 
of  those  earlier  indignities  flamed  red  in  the  Cel- 
tic-American memory,  and  into  the  Revolution  a 
spirit  was  infused  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  blood 
of  Washington  and  Franklin  could  not  explain. 
It  was  the  Celtic  strain  in  American  democracy. 

The  British  Celt  who  came  to  North  America 


28        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

had  an  inherited  democracy  of  his  own.  That 
Celtic  democracy  was  not  derived  from  Teutonic 
sources  in  Europe.  Neither  was  it  imposed  by 
the  Anglo-Saxons  of  England.  It  was  of  the 
very  life  and  essence  of  the  historic  clan  system 
of  the  Celtic  peoples.  It  was  worlds  away  from 
the  feudal  system  fastened  on  Anglo-Norman 
England.  In  the  feudal  system  the  liege  lord  was 
supreme,  the  source  of  authority,  of  power,  and 
of  reward;  its  government  was  from  above,  a 
graded  and  organised  form  of  absolutism,  and  in 
the  selection  or  appointment  of  their  feudal  su- 
perior the  English  yeomen  had  no  say.  Feudal- 
ism, in  spirit  and  motive  and  power,  was  a  des- 
potism. The  clan  system  was  at  bottom  a  democ- 
racy. The  power  of  the  clan  resided  in  the  clan 
itself.  It  was  exercised  by  the  chief,  not  at  all 
as  a  feudal  despot,  but  solely  as  the  approved 
representative  of  the  clan.  The  heir-apparent  to 
the  chieftainship  was  required  to  make  full  proof 
of  his  qualities,  both  physical  and  moral,  and  only 
at  his  peril  did  he  cherish  personal  ambitions  at 
variance  with  the  interests  of  his  clansmen.  The 
supreme  devotion  of  the  Highland  clansmen  to 
their  Chief  had  in  it  the  sense  of  blood-affinity 
and  of  democratic  freedom  which  the  feudal  des- 
pot could  not  command.  Even  the  Stuart  Kings, 
who,  to  their  own  undoing,  affected  the  pedantic 
pretensions  of  Divine  Right,  never  quite  lost  the 


THE  CELTIC  STRAIN  29 

democratic  touch  of  kinship  with  the  least  among 
the  men  of  the  clans.  And  in  the  loyalty  of  the 
clansmen,  often  a  loyalty  of  blood-sacrifice  for  a 
lost  cause,  there  was  all  the  pride  and  independ- 
ence of  men  who  were  conscious  of  their  personal 
freedom.  No  people  in  America  in  the  days  of 
George  Washington  held  a  clearer  title  to  his- 
toric democracy,  or  had  behind  them  so  long  and 
so  unbroken  a  record  of  civil  freedom,  as  had  the 
men  of  the  Celtic  strain  who  penetrated  the  At- 
lantic seaboard  at  wide  intervals  all  the  way  from 
Nova  Scotia  to  the  Carolinas. 

The  Celtic  strain  was  distinct  in  each  of  the 
New  England  colonies  except  perhaps  Connecti- 
cut. In  New  York,  especially  along  the  Hudson 
and  in  the  Mohawk  valleys,  Celtic  influence  was 
still  more  marked.  New  Jersey,  with  Princeton 
as  a  centre,  was  in  the  front  rank.  In  Pennsyl- 
vania, covering  great  groups  of  counties  extend- 
ing from  Philadelphia,  round  about  Harrisburg 
and  Pittsburg,  and  running  through  the  wide  in- 
tervales of  Western  Virginia  into  Tennessee,  and 
over  the  great  plantations  of  North  Carolina  and 
South  Carolina  into  Georgia — here  the  Scottish 
colonists  from  Scotland  and  the  Scottish  counties 
in  Ireland  established  almost  continuous  settle- 
ments whose  Celtic  life-strain  has  prevailed  alike 
in  State  and  in  Church. 

Very  many  of  those  settlers  came  to  America 


30        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

under  the  stress  of  political  and  ecclesiastical  per- 
secutions for  which  feudal  and  prelatic  influences 
from  England  were  responsible.  The  ports  of 
Scotland  and  Ireland  witnessed  such  sacrifices 
for  the  sake  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  as  en- 
riched American  life,  but  left  Britain  poor  in- 
deed. 

Through  colonial  days  there  were  developed 
institutions  of  life  and  government  partly  mod- 
elled on  those  in  the  home  lands,  but  more  largely 
expressive  of  the  political  genuis  and  instincts  of 
the  people.  Virginia,  with  its  Royalist  blood, 
favoured  Episcopacy  and  the  institutions  becom- 
ing monarchy.  New  England,  with  its  Puritan 
independency,  was  individualist  and  democratic. 
In  Pennsylvania  the  Quakers  and  the  Dutch  gave 
a  soberness  to  life  that  went  to  no  extreme.  But 
through  all  the  colonies  there  ran  the  Celtic  strain 
— the  fervent  spirit  of  Scottish  democracy  and 
the  organising  power  of  the  Scottish  Church. 

It  has  been  a  question  for  dispute  among  Amer- 
ican partisans  as  to  who  started  the  movement 
that  led  to  Independence.  John  Adams  was  pro- 
tagonist for  James  Otis  of  Boston.  Thomas 
Jefferson  gave  the  honour  to  Patrick  Henry,  the 
fiery  young  Scottish  Celt  who  led  Virginia,  even 
with  its  English  Cavaliers,  into  independence,  and 
as  war  Governor  held  them  there.  Certain  it  is 
the  declaration  of  Patrick  Henry:  "As  for  me, 


THE  CELTIC  STRAIN  31 

give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death,"  quivered  with 
true  Celtic  passion  and  became  the  watchword  of 
young  America  for  generations. 

The  fact  is  that  the  instinct  for  self-govern- 
ment was  in  the  blood  of  most  of  the  colonists, 
Saxon  and  Celt,  and  when  the  occasion  arose  the 
spirit  needed  only  the  voice.  A  dozen  currents 
and  cross-currents  confused  the  people.  Those 
who  counted  the  cost  hung  back,  for  revolution 
meant  sacrifice  and  inevitable  loss.  Families  were 
divided.  Class  stood  against  class.  Blood  spoke 
against  blood.  Hierarchical  Episcopacy  instinc- 
tively took  one  side  and  democratic  Presbyterian- 
ism  the  other.  In  the  main  the  Scottish  people, 
remembering  what  they  and  their  fathers  in  Scot- 
land and  Ireland  had  suffered  from  arrogant 
autocracy,  took  their  stand  for  self-government. 
Indeed,  in  some  communities  the  dividing  lines  in 
the  war  were  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  political,  and 
for  the  most  part  Tories  in  the  colonies  sympa- 
thised with  Tories  in  the  mother  country,  and 
Whigs  with  Whigs. 

The  histories  on  both  sides  make  much,  and 
rightly  so,  of  the  part  played  by  the  Scottish 
Highlanders  in  New  York  State,  who  fought  so 
gallantly  on  the  Loyalist  side  under  Sir  John 
Johnson,  and  the  still  larger  numbers  in  North 
Carolina  who  also  answered  to  the  King's  com- 
mand.    The  settlers  on  the  great  estate  of  Sir 


32  DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

William  Johnson  in  the  Mohawk  Valley  were 
from  the  Highland  glens  running  down  from 
Loch  Ness  to  the  western  seacoast  of  Argyll,  the 
ancestral  home  of  Sir  William.  Many  of  them, 
like  the  Chisholms  of  Strathglass  and  the  Mac- 
donells  of  Glengarry,  had  fought  on  the  Stuart 
side  at  Culloden  and  were  harried  out  of  their 
homeland  by  the  officers  of  the  Duke  of  Cumber- 
land. The  loyal  devotion  they  had  given  to  their 
chiefs  among  the  Scottish  hills  they  transferred 
to  their  new  chieftain,  under  whose  protection 
they  came  to  America.  In  the  histories  Johnson 
is  called  "an  Irishman."  True,  he  came  to  Amer- 
ica a  young  man  from  Ireland,  but  in  blood  and 
temperament,  if  not  indeed  also  in  speech,  he  was 
a  Scottish  Gael  from  Ardnamurchan,  on  the  Ar- 
gyllshire coast:  a  true  Macdonald  clansman  of 
the  Lord  of  the  Isles,  whose  patronymic,  Mac 
Ian — "son  of  John" — in  its  English  form  be- 
came famous  in  the  colony  and  afterwards  in 
Canada. 

The  most  instructive  and  illuminating  story 
of  the  Celtic  strain  in  American  life  is  told  in  the 
history  of  the  great  Scottish  colonies  in  the 
South.  Hill  men  in  Scotland,  thousands  of  them, 
found  congenial  homes  in  the  great  mountain  re- 
gions of  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky.  North  Carolina  itself  has  a  dozen 
counties  as  Celtic  in  their  blood  and  background 


THE  CELTIC  STRAIN  33 

as  any  district  in  Canada.  It  is  said  that  more 
than  forty  thousand  Highlanders,  with  the  lan- 
guage and  traditions  of  the  ancient  Scottish 
Church,  settled  on  the  great  plantations  and  in 
the  matchless  pine  forests  of  the  Cape  Fear  River 
district  of  North  Carolina  before  the  days  of  the 
Revolution.  When  the  crisis  came  their  settle- 
ments were  divided.  Even  family  ties  were  bro- 
ken. Nearly  all  the  earlier  settlers  sided  with 
the  Whigs  and  fought  for  self-government,  while 
many  of  those  who  came  after  Culloden  and  the 
dark  days  of  the  'Forty-five  took  up  arms  with 
the  Tories  for  the  King.  To-day  their  descend- 
ants declare  their  independence  in  matters  of  pa- 
triotism over  Boston  and  New  England,  and 
claim  precedence  over  Philadelphia  in  their  stand 
for  liberty.  Certain  it  is  their  "Liberty  Point,"  in 
Fayetteville,  in  the  very  centre  of  that  Highland 
Scottish  colony,  commemorates  their  public  pro- 
test and  declaration  on  June  4,  1775.  But  it  is 
also  true  that  on  the  very  same  spot,  on  Febru- 
ary 18,  1776,  three  thousand  Highland  soldiers 
were  mustered  for  King  George,  some  of  them 
wearing  the  kilts  and  carrying  the  broadswords 
for  the  House  of  Hanover  that  had  been  hidden 
since  their  last  struggle  for  the  House  of  Stuart 
at  fateful  Culloden  thirty  years  before. 

Students  of  Washington's  times  have  been  per- 
plexed as  to  the  causes  that  divided  those  Scot- 


34  DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

tish  Highlanders  in  the  American  struggle. 
Many  of  those  who  fought  on  the  Tory  side  were 
as  stoutly  opposed  to  Tory  principles  as  were  the 
most  radical  of  the  Whigs.  Some  of  them,  in- 
deed, had  been  Anti-Burghers  in  Scotland,  and, 
after  fighting  on  the  Tory  side  against  Washing- 
ton in  America,  were  founders  and  pillars  of  the 
"Anti-Burgher"  Church  in  Nova  Scotia  and  in 
Upper  Canada.  Now  the  Anti-Burghers  were 
those  who,  in  Scottish  political  and  religious 
struggles,  stood  against  the  interference  of  the 
civil  officers  of  the  Burgh  in  the  administration 
of  the  affairs  of  the  Church.  They  were  the 
Radicals  of  their  day.  Why  then  did  they  side 
with  the  Tories  in  America,  especially  as  in  Scot- 
land, as  supporters  of  the  Stuart  cause,  they  had 
suffered  persecution  and  banishment  at  the  hands 
of  the  Hanoverian  partisans?  There  is  one  ex- 
planation: it  was  "for  the  oath's  sake." 

Those  clansmen  did  not  love  King  George  the 
Third  in  America  any  more  than  they  loved  him 
in  Scotland,  but  after  Culloden  they  had  been 
compelled  to  take  the  hated  Cumberland  oath  of 
allegiance,  and  that  oath  held : 

"I,  A —  B — ,  do  swear,  and  as  I  shall  an- 
swer to  God  at  the  great  day  of  judgment,  I 
have  not,  nor  shall  have,  in  my  possession 
any  gun,  pistol  or  arm  whatsoever,  and 
never  use  tartan  plaid,  or  any  part  of  the 


THE  CELTIC  STRAIN  35 

Highland  garb,  and  if  I  do  so  may  I  be 
cursed  in  my  undertakings,  family  and  prop- 
erty; may  I  never  see  my  wife  and  children, 
father,  mother  or  relation;  may  I  be  killed 
in  battle  as  a  coward,  and  lie,  without  Chris- 
tian burial,  in  a  strange  land,  far  from  the 
graves  of  my  forefathers  and  kindred — may 
all  this  come  across  me  if  I  break  my  oath." 

That  oath  was  a  root  of  bitterness  in  the  hearts 
of  the  clansmen  in  Scotland  and  in  America. 
Their  descendants  to  this  day  remember  it.  But 
the  idealism  of  the  Celtic  nature  saved  them. 
And  that  same  quality  of  mind  long  ago  healed 
the  Celtic  wounds  of  the  Revolutionary  strife  in 
America.  The  names  of  the  Celtic  Loyalists  who 
kept  their  oath  in  the  colonies,  even  though  theirs 
was  a  lost  cause,  are  honoured  to-day  by  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Celtic  Patriots,  who  were  not 
bound  by  the  oath's  outlawed  obligations.  In- 
deed in  the  very  centre  of  those  Scottish  counties 
in  North  Carolina  the  name  of  the  chief  inspirer 
of  the  Loyalists,  the  world-famed  Scottish  hero- 
ine, Flora  Macdonald,  who  lived  there  through 
five  troublous  years,  will  be  honoured  and  perpet- 
uated in  the  "Flora  Macdonald  College."  The 
American  Celts  whose  forefathers  fought  for  In- 
dependence under  George  Washington  are  proud 
to  count  themselves  of  the  same  blood  as  those 
who  in  Scotland  swore  to  their  own  hurt  and  in 


36  DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

America  changed  not.  It  was  "just  for  a  scrap  of 
paper,"  but  it  witnessed  the  Celts'  deathless  de- 
votion to  a  cause  and  loyalty  to  a  trust.  That, 
too,  is  an  element  in  the  Anglo-American  unity. 

And  those  Loyalists  of  the  Celtic  strain  who 
afterwards  settled  in  Canada,  even  though  they 
lost  everything  and  suffered  cruel  injustice  at  the 
hands  of  the  American  authorities,  were  not  in 
their  day,  nor  are  their  descendants  to-day,  ele- 
ments of  international  discord.  What  Matthew 
Arnold  says  about  the  part  played  by  the  Celtic 
blood  in  British  life  has  been  justified  in  Ameri- 
can history.  In  both  nations  through  these  gen- 
erations the  embitterment  of  petty  jealousies  and 
local  strifes  has  been  absorbed  in  the  sense  of  the 
wider  possibilities  of  national  life  and  the  world- 
wide significance  of  America's  international 
achievement.  The  prophets  and  seers  saved  the 
nations  from  the  leadership  of  the  men  with  the 
muck-rake  eyes.  Neither  the  State  nor  the 
Church  in  either  country  has  ever  been  without 
its  succession  of  men  who  see  visions  and  dream 
dreams.  The  cherished  divination  of  the  Celtic 
races  of  history,  their  "second  sight,"  is  in  part 
but  shrewd  foresight  allied  to  a  wide-horizoned, 
practical  imagination. 

It  is  that  idealism,  that  imaginativeness,  that 
pioneering  spirit  which  the  skyline  always  beck- 
ons forward,  that  readiness  to  risk  seeming  de- 


THE  CELTIC  STRAIN  37 

feat  to-day  in  the  hope  of  larger  achievement  to- 
morrow— it  is  that  Celtic  strain,  allied  with  the 
steadier  and  less  romantic  impulse  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  which  give  spiritual  vitality  as  well  as 
practical  power  to  the  Anglo-American  unity. 


SELF-GOVERNMENT:    NOT  SEPARA- 
TION 

THE  Anglo-Saxon  impulse  and  the  Celtic 
strain,  blended  in  the  blood  of  the  Thirteen 
colonies,  made  inevitable  one  issue.  That  inev- 
itable and  supreme  issue  was  self-government. 
In  raising  that  issue  the  colonies  proved  their 
British  birthright.  They  did  more.  They  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  greatest  contribution  of 
the  United  States  to  the  democracy  of  the  world. 
Among  themselves  the  colonies  were  excessively 
colonial,  jealous  each  of  all  the  others,  and  in  the 
end  all  of  them  jealous  of  even  the  appearance  of 
dictation  or  direction  from  without.  But  through 
all  that  jargon  one  note  was  struck,  ringing  and 
sustained.  That  dominant  note  made  for  colo- 
nial harmony  in  Washington's  day:  it  has  made 
for  Anglo-American  unity  to-day:  it  will  make 
for  world  concord  to-morrow. 

What  is  that  greatest  contribution  of  the 
United  States  to  the  democracy  of  the  world? 
It  is  the  declaration  of  the  right  of  a  free  people 
to  govern  themselves;  the  declaration  before  all 
the  world  that  any  people,  anywhere  and  at  any 
time,  who  desire  self-government,  and  are  fit 

38 


SELF-GOVERNMENT:  NOT  SEPARATION    39 

for  self-government,  must  be  given  the  chance 
and  the  responsibility  of  governing  themselves: 
the  supreme  declaration  of  democracy  that 
the  authority  of  all  human  government  among 
a  free  people  is  based  on  the  consent  of 
the  governed.  And  that  declaration,  made  good 
in  the  history  of  the  nation,  and  illustrated  in  the 
nation's  dealings  with  little  peoples  and  backward 
races,  is  the  greatest  achievement  of  the  United 
States  of  America. 

That  declaration  was  not  altogether  new  in 
the  political  thinking  of  the  world.  Freedom  has 
always  been  a  disturbing  spark  in  the  human 
mind.  The  instinct  for  self-government  in  the 
history  of  every  people  marred  the  plans  of  auto- 
crats and  despots.  The  declaration  of  the  Amer- 
ican colonies  was  not  a  denial  of  their  heritage 
from  the  British  Isles  and  from  Holland;  it  was 
an  acknowledgment  and  confirmation.  What 
they  did  was  not  a  new  thing :  it  was  a  large  thing, 
a  thing  on  a  new  scale,  a  thing  of  world  propor- 
tions and  of  world  significance.  America's  pro- 
test shook  to  their  foundations  the  autocracies  of 
Europe.  Its  full  meaning  will  be  made  plain 
when  the  last  autocracy  falls. 

It  was  not  indeed  for  independence  the  leaders 
among  the  Patriots  in  the  colonies  strove.  In- 
dependence may  be  only  the  noisy  clamour  of  the 
law-breaker  and  the  libertine.    But  self -govern- 


40  DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

ment  any  free-minded  people  must  have  or  be 
slaves.  National  autonomy  is  of  the  very  essence 
of  national  freedom.  George  Washington  and 
Thomas  Jefferson  and  Alexander  Hamilton  and 
Benjamin  Franklin  proved  themselves  heirs  of 
the  Teuton  idea  and  sons  of  the  British  blood 
when,  in  the  supreme  hour  of  crisis,  they  stood 
against  an  arrogant  monarch  and  an  aristocratic 
government  for  the  rights  of  British  freemen  in 
the  colonies  of  America. 

And  it  was  not  against  monarchy  Washington 
and  his  compatriots  set  out.  It  is  quite  probable 
that  many  of  them,  in  their  serious  political  think- 
ing, were  monarchists.  Washington  himself  was 
never  greatly  concerned  with  political  theories 
except  in  their  relations  to  some  practical  issue. 
In  the  perilous  days  of  the  new  Union,  after  the 
decisive  victory  at  Yorktown  and  before  govern- 
ment was  established  on  any  secure  basis,  he 
might  have  become  King.  The  proposal  was 
made.  "Let  me  conjure  you,"  he  replied,  "if  you 
have  any  regard  for  your  country,  concern  for 
yourself  or  posterity,  or  respect  for  me,  to  ban- 
ish these  thoughts  from  your  mind."  And  they 
banished  them. 

The  idea  of  an  American  monarchy  was  sug- 
gested not  alone  by  the  exigencies  of  the  army 
after  the  war  was  over,  and  the  utter  incapacity 
of  the  Congress,  ten  years  after  the  Declaration 


SELF-GOVERNMENT:  NOT  SEPARATION    41 

of  Independence,  either  to  secure  decent  respect 
for  law  in  the  various  States  or  to  command  re- 
spect for  the  nation  abroad,  but  also  by  the  love 
for  Royalty  and  the  things  that  pertain  to  Court, 
which  not  even  yet  has  died  out  of  the  people  of 
the  great  American  democracy.  The  tradition 
still  survives  in  Jacobite  circles,  and  not  without 
probability,  that  in  the  early  days  of  the  conflict 
with  the  British  Ministry,  when  change  was  cer- 
tain, but  before  resentment  broke  into  revolution, 
a  delegation  from  the  colonies  visited  Rome  to 
present  to  the  exiled  Prince  Charles  Edward  Stu- 
art the  offer  of  a  crown  and  throne  in  a  new 
Kingdom  of  America.  One  may  speculate  as  to 
what  might  have  been  in  the  twentieth  century 
for  America  and  for  the  world  had  "Bonnie 
Charlie"  been  worthy  of  a  tithe  of  the  love  and 
devotion  lavished  on  him  by  the  Highland  clans 
in  Scotland,  or  deserved  the  confidence  of  men  of 
his  own  Celtic  strain  in  the  American  colonies  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  But  it  could  not  be.  The 
House  of  Stuart  had  sinned  away  its  last  chance. 
America's  future  might  not  be  with  Hanover, 
but  it  could  not  be  with  Stuart. 

A  new  monarchy  was  not  a  solution.  Inde- 
pendence was  not  seriously  talked  among  the  lead- 
ers of  colonial  thought  because  the  idea  of  politi- 
cal independence  was  not  seriously  in  their  minds. 
With  the  utmost  frankness  and  the  strongest  em- 


42        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

phasis  Washington  repudiated  the  suggestion 
that  separation  was  a  solution  of  the  difficulties. 
Armed  resistance  to  the  objectionable  legislation 
in  London  he  thought  quite  probable,  but  beyond 
such  clear  expression  of  the  strong  convictions  of 
the  people  he  was  confident  it  would  not  be  need- 
ful to  go.  In  October,  1774,  he  wrote  of  the  an- 
gry situation  in  Boston,  as  he  says,  "with  a  de- 
gree of  confidence  and  boldness,"  and  out  of  his 
own  personal  knowledge:  "I  think  I  can  an- 
nounce it  as  a  fact  that  it  is  not  the  wish  or  in- 
terest of  that  Government  (of  Massachusetts), 
or  any  other  upon  this  continent,  separately  or 
collectively,  to  set  up  for  independence."  The 
Congress,  in  its  address  to  the  people  of  Britain, 
gave  unreserved  assurance  that  the  suggestions 
that  the  colonies  were  "desirous  of  independency" 
were  "not  facts,  but  calumnies."  It  was  not  un- 
til the  choice  had  to  be  made  between  uncondi- 
tional submission  to  what  they  believed  to  be  ar- 
bitrary measures,  or  united  resistance  in  vindica- 
tion of  what  to  them  were  ancient  rights,  that 
the  word  "independence"  was  spoken  aloud  in  the 
hearing  of  all  the  people. 

Self-government  was  indeed  the  end  in  view. 
Franklin  believed  in  a  closer  Imperial  union. 
"The  British  Empire,"  he  said,  "is  not  a  single 
State ;  it  comprehends  many ;  and  though  the  Par- 
liament of  Great  Britain  has  arrogated  to  itself 


SELF-GOVERNMENT:  NOT  SEPARATION     43 

the  power  of  taxing  the  colonies,  it  has  no  more 
right  to  do  so  than  it  has  to  tax  Hanover.  We 
have  the  same  King,  but  not  the  same  Legisla- 
tures." Freedom  from  government  by  a  Legisla- 
ture they  did  not  elect  was  the  essence  of  the  co- 
lonial grievance.  Franklin  believed  in  colonial 
representation  in  the  British  Parliament. 

Franklin's  scheme  was  impossible.  The  Atlan- 
tic Ocean  at  that  time  was  against  it.  And  the 
other  alternative  of  national  status  and  national 
self-government  within  the  Imperial  circle,  which 
in  the  nineteenth  century  created  the  British  over- 
seas Dominions,  the  world  of  Washington's  day 
did  not  know.  The  world  knew  of  no  way  by 
which  any  colony  of  any  empire  could  come  from 
colonial  dependence  to  national  autonomy  except 
the  old  way  of  separation.  There  seemed  noth- 
ing for  it  but  to  cut  the  painter  and  to  strike  for 
complete  political  independence.  The  colonies 
took  the  risk.  A  thousand  false  cries  may  have 
been  raised,  raised  on  both  sides,  but  the  one  su- 
preme thing  that  emerged  and  endured  was  the 
declaration  of  fundamental  rights:  the  declara- 
tion of  the  right  of  a  free  people  to  govern  them- 
selves, and  the  winning,  in  the  experience  of 
the  nation,  of  that  larger  liberty  of  thought 
and  of  life  which  gives  to  each  man  a  free  man's 
chance. 

Despite  the  losses  and  wrongs  which  revolution 


44»        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

always  brings,  that  contribution  to  world  democ- 
racy marked  in  itself  a  new  epoch  in  the  history 
of  human  government,  and  is  the  greatest 
achievement  of  the  United  States  of  America. 


DEMOCRACY  AND  UNITY 

DEMOCRACY  and  Liberty  are  of  the  very 
essence  of  the  Anglo-American  unity. 
That  fundamental  fact  has  been  revealed  in  the 
fierce  and  sometimes  lurid  light  of  Europe's 
great  war. 

In  things  on  the  surface,  the  things  of  com- 
merce and  of  industrial  aspiration,  Britain  and 
the  United  States  may  sometimes  be  far  apart. 
Indeed  for  ten  years  past  there  was  growing  up 
in  the  American  Republic  a  body  of  opinion  sym- 
pathetic with  ideas  and  institutions  in  the  Ger- 
man Empire  rather  than  in  Britain.  What  Amer- 
ican scholars  called  "German  Method"  had  gained 
considerable  influence  over  the  American  mind. 
For  this  reason  it  was  difficult  for  the  people  of 
the  United  States  to  appreciate  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  Europe's  war  outbreak.  The  horror  of 
it,  the  waste  of  it,  the  moral  wickedness  of  it, 
the  typical  American  grasped  at  first  blush.  But 
its  deeper  meaning,  its  meaning  not  for  Belgium 
alone  or  for  Britain,  but  for  democracies  every- 
where, and  therefore  its  supreme  meaning  for 
America — this  did  not  come  home  to  the  Ameri- 
can mind  in  the  first  week  of  August,  1914. 

45 


46        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

But  when  the  thoughtful  American  caught  his 
breath  he  asked  this  question :  What  is  the  Ger- 
man army  doing  in  Belgium?  And  when  he  an- 
swered that  question,  answered  it  in  the  uncov- 
ered light  of  Germany's  long-prepared  and  delib- 
erately carried  out  program  of  European  mas- 
tership, the  thoughtful  American  took  his  stand. 
That  stand  was  not  pro-British ;  it  was  anti-Ger- 
man. It  was  anti-German  because  Germany,  in 
the  boldest  and  most  flagrant  way,  had  sinned 
against  all  that  is  worth  while  in  democracy,  as 
democracy  is  understood  and  exemplified  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  And  that  stand  is 
anti-German  to  stay. 

Nothing  could  be  more  instructive,  nothing 
more  suggestive  of  the  reflex  influence  of  demo- 
cratic freedom  on  the  psychology  of  a  whole  peo- 
ple than  is  a  study  of  the  instinctive  rebound  of 
the  American  mind  from  the  despot-spirit  of 
Prussian  militarism  as  it  touches  Belgium  and 
the  rights  of  all  the  small  nationalities.  The 
spirit  of  the  American  people,  more  impulsive, 
more  outspoken,  more  direct  than  the  restrained 
and  entirely  proper  words  of  their  responsible 
leaders  may  suggest,  went  straight  to  its  mark. 
It  spoke  instant  condemnation.  It  would  have 
supported  immediate  demand  for  restitution  and 
expiation.  And  not  even  sober  second  thought, 
or  the  prudent  considerations  of  self-interest,  or 


DEMOCRACY  AND  UNITY  47 

all  the  arguments  and  inducements  of  the  apolo- 
gists from  Germany  and  the  pro-German  profes- 
sors and  editors  in  the  United  States,  could  or 
ever  can  move  American  democracy  from  its  first 
instinctive  stand  against  the  military  despotism 
that,  in  defiance  of  law  and  in  the  name  of  "cul- 
ture," violated  the  guaranteed  neutrality  of  Bel- 
gium and  desecrated  the  sanctuaries  of  Belgian 
life.  That  fact  proves  that  in  a  democracy  the 
moral  instincts  of  the  people  may  be  trusted. 

That  anti-German  stand,  taken  without  hesita- 
tion when  once  the  situation  was  grasped,  and 
held  with  growing  tenacity  and  determination 
when  what  lay  behind  the  Belgian  situation  was 
more  clearly  exposed — that  stand  did  not  at  all 
mean  partiality  in  favour  of  Britain  on  the  part 
of  the  great  body  of  the  American  people.  The 
untravelled  American  millions  do  not  love  the 
British,  or,  as  they  say,  "the  English."  They 
have  not  wholly  emerged  from  the  thraldom  of 
old-time  school  histories  and  popular  fiction,  in 
which  "allegiance  to  England"  was  represented 
as  an  intolerable  bondage,  and  the  typical  Eng- 
lishman as  either  a  bully  or  a  fool.  Before  the 
war  broke  out,  in  1914,  Britain,  as  compared  with 
Germany,  was  heavily  handicapped  in  the  contest 
for  American  applause.  The  few  who  were  stu- 
dents of  history  of  both  sides,  and  all  who  let  old 
prejudices  die  and  be  forgotten,  even  though 


48        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

they  may  have  traced  their  lineage  to  the  heroes 
of  the  Revolution,  recognised  the  community 
of  interests  of  all  peoples  who  speak  the 
English  tongue  and  are  loyal  to  the  in- 
stitutions of  democratic  self-government. 
Americans  who  had  learned  to  think  inter- 
nationally knew  that  between  the  United 
States  and  Britain  there  was  a  tie  that  was  deeper 
than  speech  and  stronger  than  blood.  But  the 
million  gods  of  the  gallery  knew  nothing  about 
Prussian  political  ideals,  and  somewhere  in  the 
back  of  their  minds  still  lingered  echoes  of  Eng- 
land and  1776.  Those  echoes,  a  snatch  of  song, 
or  a  phrase  from  a  Fourth  of  July  oration,  were 
Britain's  handicap  in  1914. 

But  a  change  came.  Steadily,  inevitably,  as 
the  breach  widened  between  feeling  in  the  United 
States  and  Germany's  behaviour  in  Belgium, 
there  was  disclosed  to  the  average  American  not 
only  the  fact  of  Anglo-American  fraternity,  but, 
what  is  much  more  important,  the  real  character 
of  that  fact's  enduring  foundations. 

The  basis  of  Anglo-American  unity  to-day  is 
not  in  any  Anglo-Saxon  blood  affinity.  The  blood 
that  came  to  America  from  Britain,  whether  Sax- 
on or  Celt,  has  been  blended  with  bloods  from 
every  race  of  Europe,  and  to-day  is  undistin- 
guished either  for  its  colour  or  for  its  strength. 
Besides,  while  blood  is  thicker  than  water,  the 


DEMOCRACY  AND  UNITY  49 

Teutonic  blood-bond  across  the  Channel,  which 
gave  Englishmen  and  Germans  a  common  race 
heritage,  snapped  in  19 14,  just  as  the  blood-bond 
across  the  Atlantic  snapped  in  1776.  Not  blood, 
but  democracy,  is  the  bond  of  the  Anglo-Ameri- 
can international  unity. 

Not  common  blood,  but  a  common  idea,  a  com- 
mon principle,  a  common  purpose,  holds  together 
as  in  a  common  life  the  peoples  of  the  English 
speech,  the  nations  of  the  democratic  tradition. 
And  not  democracy  as  an  external  form  of  gov- 
ernment, but  democracy  as  a  living  spirit,  as  an 
instinctive  attitude  of  mind,  as  a  germinating  idea 
incarnated  in  the  political  and  social  institutions 
of  free  peoples — the  true  democracy  of  life  astir 
in  the  public  opinion  of  the  two  peoples  is  bring- 
ing Britain  and  the  United  States  into  closer  fel- 
lowship to-day  than,  as  nations,  they  have  been 
at  any  time  since  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. 

And  this  Anglo-American  unity,  which  was  in- 
deed the  original  and  dominant  desire  of  George 
Washington,  and  which  will  be  a  factor  in  world 
affairs  after  this  world-war  is  over,  is  not  a  com- 
ing back  home  of  the  colonies  that  seceded  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  That  pleasant  conceit  of 
some  Englishmen  is  not  at  all  what  is  taking 
place.  The  sons  of  the  American  Patriots  are 
not  denying  the  faith  of  their  fathers.    Rather 


50        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

are  they  magnifying  that  faith,  following  its 
gleam,  fulfilling  its  trust.  Through  the  past  cen- 
tury democracy  has  become  the  compelling  cen- 
tripetal force  in  the  life  of  Britain  and  in  the  life 
of  the  United  States.  Each  has  been  moving  to- 
wards the  common  democratic  ideal.  To-day 
they  both  lift  up  their  eyes,  sometimes  in  glad 
surprise,  to  find  that  as  they  have  been  loyal  to 
that  ideal  and  obedient  to  its  call  so  have  they 
approached  near  and  still  nearer  to  each  other  in 
all  the  things  that  make  for  peace  and  justice  and 
the  common  weal.  Democracy  was  the  highway 
to  unity  for  the  English-speaking  peoples. 

That  way,  and  that  way  alone,  lies  unity  for  all 
the  peoples  of  earth.  Despotism  means  division 
and  warfare.  Democracy  is  the  prelude  to  peace. 
World  democracy  based  on  personal  liberty  will 
make  natural  and  sure  the  world  commonwealth 
of  nations. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AND  THE  ENDUR- 
ING DEMOCRACY 


II 

LINCOLN 

IF  George  Washington  was  a  flower  of  the 
English  aristocracy  growing  in  the  rich  new 
soil  of  American  life,  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
America's  incarnation  of  the  soul  and  spirit  of 
the  world's  democracy.  He  was  a  true  democrat : 
he  believed  the  power  of  government  should  be 
in  the  hands  of  the  people.  His  democracy  was 
not  in  name  and  outward  appearance,  or  even  in 
political  forms  and  pledges.  His  was  a  democ- 
racy of  the  mind.  In  the  thought  and  motive  and 
purpose  of  his  life  he  counted  himself  one  of  the 
people,  of  "the  plain  people."  He  neither  looked 
down  from  the  pinnacle  of  class  superiority,  nor 
up  from  the  abasement  of  class  subservience.  His 
eyes  were  level  with  the  point  of  view  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  very  fibre  of  his  own  political  thinking 
was  expressed  in  the  historic  quotation  at  Get- 
tysburg, which  he  made  current  in  American 
thought:  "the  government  of  the  people  by  the 
people  and  for  the  people."  In  the  searching 
light,  in  the  lurid  light,  these  days  cast,  not  alone 
on  the  warring  nations  of  Europe,  but  in  America 
as  well,  the  name  of  Lincoln  stands  out  more 
strikingly,  more  impressively,  than  even  when  in 

53 


54>  DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

1909  the  whole  civilised  world  celebrated  with 
high  acclaim  the  centennial  of  his  birth.  For 
among  the  men  born  of  American  women  there 
has  not  arisen  a  greater  than  Abraham  Lincoln. 
George  Washington  was  the  natural  product 
of  English  heredity  and  American  environment. 
As  the  Stars  and  Stripes  was  the  development 
of  the  Washington  family  crest  in  England,  so 
the  Father  of  his  Country  was  himself  the  law- 
ful son  of  his  English  sires.  But  no  study  of 
heredity  explains  Lincoln.  His  environment — 
whether  in  birth  in  the  rude  Kentucky  cabin,  or 
in  the  sordid  poverty  of  after  years  in  Indiana 
and  Illinois,  or  in  the  fierce  lights  and  shadows  of 
his  four  tragic  years  as  President  of  the  Repub- 
lic— his  environment  offers  no  clue  to  the  mystery 
of  his  life.  The  ordinary  processes  of  analysis 
and  appreciation  do  not  reveal  his  secret.  Blood 
may  tell,  and  types  may  persist,  but  not  with  him. 
No  one  went  before.  No  one  followed  after. 
He  flourished  alone,  as  a  root  out  of  a  dry 
ground.  In  the  mysterious  laboratory  of  Nature 
he  was  touched  with  the  magic  wand.  That  touch 
gave  him  of  "the  fire  of  fires."  In  the  murky 
night  there  glowed  for  him  the  invisible  flame 
within.  Through  the  silence  that  is  in  the  starry 
sky  there  came  to  him  that  long,  far  call.  He 
was  not  disobedient.  He  went  out  not  knowing 
whither  he  went. 


LINCOLN  55 


'A  Hand  is  stretched  to  him  from  out  the  dark, 
Which  grasping  without  question,  he  is  led 
Where  there  is  work  that  he  must  do  for  God." 


Lincoln  went  through  life  as  one  impelled, 
haunted  by  a  sense  of  Destiny,  shadowed  by  a 
Presence  that  would  not  be  put  by.  Men  did  not 
know  him  who  knew  only  his  ready  story  and  his 
ringing  laugh.  What  they  saw  was  but  the  phos- 
phorescence playing  on  the  surface:  the  depths 
beneath  were  dark  and  touched  with  gloom.  He 
was  called  to  go  by  the  sorrowful  way,  bearing 
the  awful  burden  of  his  people's  sin,  the  cry  of 
the  defenceless  in  his  ears,  the  bitterness  of  their 
passion  in  his  heart.  Misunderstood,  misjudged, 
he  was  the  most  solitary  man  of  his  time.  He 
had  to  tread  the  winepress  alone,  and  of  the  peo- 
ple none  went  with  him.  And  he  turned  not 
back.  He  never  faltered.  As  one  upheld,  sus- 
tained by  the  unseen  Hand,  he  set  his  face  stead- 
fastly, undaunted,  unafraid,  until  in  Death's 
black  minute  he  paid  glad  Life's  arrears:  the 
slaves  free!  the  Union  saved!  himself  im- 
mortal ! 

Lincoln  swept  the  whole  gamut  of  life.  Born 
in  squalid  obscurity,  nurtured  in  neglected  igno- 
rance, he  grew  to  the  full  stature  of  national 
heroism,  and  stands  out  to-day  a  distinct  figure 
on  the  wide  sky-line  of  the  world's  history.    He 


56  DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

wrote  the  decree  of  Emancipation  for  his  own 
Republic — the  emancipation  of  the  black  man 
from  enslavement  to  the  white,  the  emancipation 
.of  the  white  man  from  the  blacker  bondage  of 
the  mind  to  the  guilty  error  that  man  can  hold 
property  in  man.  He  changed  from  war  to  peace 
the  royal  message  of  the  mightiest  Empire  of  the 
world:  in  one  dread  hour  of  international  peril 
he  took  his  place  alone  in  matters  of  high  di- 
plomacy not  beside  Palmerston,  the  British  Prime 
Minister,  whose  word  might  have  meant  Anglo- 
American  war,  but  beside  Victoria,  the  gracious 
but  Imperial  Queen,  whose  word  did  mean  Anglo- 
American  peace. 

Tennyson's  lines  in  "In  Memoriam"  describing 
the  master-statesman,  written  years  before  the 
name  of  Lincoln  was  known  outside  the  confines 
of  pioneer  obscurity,  read  to-day  like  a  prophetic 
vision  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  His  life  alone  seems 
to  answer  as  that  great  original : 

Dost  thou  look  back  on  what  has  been, 
As  some  divinely  gifted  man, 
Whose  life  on  low  estate  began, 

And  on  a  simple  village  green ; 

Who  breaks  his  birth's  invidious  bar, 
And  grasps  the  skirts  of  happy  chance, 
And  breasts  the  blows  of  circumstance, 

And  grapples  with  his  evil  star; 


LINCOLN  57 

Who  makes  by  force  his  merit  known, 
And  lives  to  clutch  the  golden  keys, 
To  mould  a  mighty  State's  decrees, 

And  shape  the  whisper  of  the  throne; 

And,  moving  up  from  high  to  higher, 
Becomes  on  Fortune's  crowning  slope 
The  pillar  of  a  people's  hope, 

The  centre  of  a  world's  desire. 


THE  LINCOLN  POINT  OF  VIEW 

LINCOLN  got  his  point  of  view  when,  a  raw 
youth  in  his  teens,  he  chanced  to  stand  in 
the  slave  market  at  New  Orleans.  Penniless,  un- 
known, unfriended,  a  deck-hand  from  a  river 
boat  on  the  Mississippi,  he  looked  upon  the  hard 
and  ugly  fact  of  slavery,  as  human  flesh  and 
blood  was  sold  at  the  auction-block.  He  knew 
nothing  of  the  teaching  of  the  schools  on  polit- 
ical economy,  or  on  the  social  problem,  or  on  the 
ethical  standard ;  but  by  unerring  instinct,  thirty 
years  before  he  saw  the  White  House,  he  made 
his  choice:  "If  ever  I  get  a  chance  to  hit  that 
thing,  I'll  hit  it  hard,  by  the  Eternal  God !" 

It  was  the  voice  of  the  new  democracy.  The 
same  incurable  sense  of  the  human  rights  im- 
pelled him,  in  early  manhood,  to  declare  himself 
the  champion  of  the  common  man's  right  to  a 
man's  chance,  "until,"  as  he  foretold,  "every- 
where in  this  broad  land  the  sun  shall  shine,  and 
the  rain  shall  fall,  and  the  wind  shall  blow  upon 
no  man  that  goes  forth  to  unrequited  toil."  That 
protest  against  "unrequited  toil"  was  the  voice  of 
the  coming  democracy  raised  in  defence,  not 
of  negro  labour  alone,  but  also  of  the  unprivi- 

58 


THE  LINCOLN  POINT  OF  VIEW  59 

leged  and  the  voiceless  of  every  race  and  in  every 
clime. 

Lincoln  was  not  learned  in  the  language  of 
modern  socialism,  and  he  knew  nothing  of  the 
theories  of  the  industrial  parasite,  or  of  the  aca- 
demic arguments  for  industrial  justice;  but,  as 
the  sinewy  arrow  goes  straight  to  its  mark,  so 
his  mind  struck  home  to  the  heart  of  the  age-long 
problem  of  capital  and  labor  when  he  protested 
that  "no  man  shall  eat  bread  by  the  sweat  of  an- 
other man's  brow." 

No  university  taught  Lincoln  the  fundamen- 
tals of  constitutional  law,  or  traced  for  him  the 
rise  and  fall  of  world  kingdoms  and  common- 
wealths, but  he  put  the  essential  wisdom  of  all 
the  centuries  of  human  government  into  one 
memorable  saying  in  the  senatorial  campaign  in 
Chicago  in  1858:  "A  house  divided  against  it- 
self cannot  stand.  This  government  cannot  per- 
manently endure  half  slave  and  half  free."  In 
that  dictum  is  set  forth  the  eternal  principle  of 
democracy  in  all  nations  and  for  all  the  world. 
By  such  teaching  Lincoln  gave  full  proof  of  the 
spirit  of  democratic  leadership  long  before  the 
dream  of  the  White  House  began  to  shape  his 
way. 

Lincoln  prepared  the  way  for  enduring  democ- 
racy in  the  United  States  by  his  steadfastness  in 
the  cause  of  Union  against  the  fallacies  of  Seces- 


60  DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

sion  in  the  South  and  against  the  impatience  of 
Abolition  in  the  North. 

No  man  ever  faced  a  task  more  tremendous  at 
a  time  more  critical  than  did  Abraham  Lincoln 
when  he  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  of 
the  United  States  in  Chicago  in  i860.  No  man 
ever  put  his  hand  to  an  undertaking  more  fraught 
with  peril  so  great  to  interests  so  vast  than  did 
Lincoln  on  the  day  of  his  inauguration  at  Wash- 
ington in  1 86 1.  No  man  ever  found  the  way  of 
duty  more  beset  with  disappointment  and  seeming 
defeat  than  did  Lincoln  during  those  four  awful 
years  of  power,  with  their  cabal  and  conflict  and 
unspeakable  carnage.  With  the  ruler  of  a  nation 
it  is  not  a  question  of  monarchy  or  of  democ- 
racy. Coronation  by  the  Crowd  secures  no  im- 
munity from  the  sorrows  of  the  King.  Lincoln, 
as  surely  and  as  sadly  as  any  throned  monarch, 
had  to  pay  the  price  and  drink  the  cup. 

He  was  called  to  be  the  chief  executive  of  the 
nation,  only  to  find  the  nation  divided;  to  be 
President  of  the  United  States,  only  to  find  those 
States  no  longer  united.  Secession  had  already 
sown  the  seeds  of  disunion  far  and  wide.  State 
after  State  had  broken  away.  Long  before  the 
first  gun  was  fired  on  Fort  Sumter,  Lincoln  saw 
the  foreshadow  of  coming  events.  Other  men 
might  deceive  themselves  and  might  deceive  the 
people  with  cries  of  Peace!  Peace!  when  there 


THE  LINCOLN  POINT  OF  VIEW  61 

could  be  no  peace.  Other  men,  in  the  North  as 
well  as  in  the  South,  among  the  Abolitionists  as 
well  as  among  the  planters,  might  be  ready  and 
even  eager  to  let  secession  have  its  way,  and  to 
give  to  the  slave  States  confederate  autonomy  as 
a  new  Republic.  But  with  Lincoln  it  could  not  be 
so.  He  saw  too  deeply  into  the  current  of  events 
to  dream  of  peace  for  a  nation  half  slave  and  half 
free.  He  took  too  seriously  his  own  responsibili- 
ties as  the  constitutional  President  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republic  to  stand  idly  by  while  disunion  and 
disintegration  were  destroying  that  Republic, 
and  frustrating  every  pledge  of  freedom  that 
Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Hamilton  and 
Franklin  had  given  to  the  world.  In  the  midst 
of  all  those  cross-currents  of  opinion,  and  that 
confusion  of  tongues,  and  that  panic  of  public 
feeling,  Lincoln  alone  stood  erect,  master  of  the 
situation,  his  nerve  steady,  his  head  clear,  his 
heart  unmoved. 

Lincoln  did  for  democracy  in  the  United  States 
what  needed  to  be  done,  what  had  not  been  done 
at  the  beginning,  and  what  sooner  or  later  had  to 
be  done,  when  he  stood  for  that  ideal  of  the  Re- 
public which  involved  federal  sovereignty  over 
the  uniting  States  and  made  secession  mean 
treason  and  civil  war.  The  limitation  of  State 
sovereignty  was  not  settled  by  the  Constitution. 
The  question  was  obscured :  it  was  evaded.  Had 


62        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

it  been  pressed  to  the  forefront,  some  of  the 
States  might  not  have  come  in  had  they  known 
they  could  not  go  out.  There  was,  at  least,  an 
arguable  case  for  secession  in  the  equivocal  lan- 
guage of  the  Constitution,  as  well  as  in  the  fact 
and  the  fortunes  of  the  Revolution.  Time  might 
have  solved  the  problem  had  the  aggressions  of 
slavery  not  raised  the  issue.  But  once  raised,  it 
had  to  be  faced.  Lincoln  faced  it.  And  in  facing 
it  and  settling  it,  he  established  the  fabric  of  de- 
mocracy in  the  United  States  on  constitutional 
foundations  that  cannot  be  moved. 

And  the  statesmanship  of  Lincoln  saved  de- 
mocracy when  he  stood  first  of  all  for  the  Union, 
for  its  honour,  for  its  integrity,  for  its  supreme 
claim  upon  the  loyalty  of  every  citizen  in  every 
State.  He  refused,  as  surely  as  the  Secessionists 
refused,  to  make  slavery  the  issue  of  the  war. 
Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet  and  the  leaders  of  the 
North  said  they  fought  to  save  the  Union.  Jef- 
ferson Davis  and  the  leaders  of  the  South  said 
they  fought  for  State  rights.  They  all  said  it 
was  not  slavery.  Both  sides  gave  assurances  to 
Britain  that  it  was  not  slavery.  Lincoln  knew 
too  well  that,  notwithstanding  the  fiery  propa- 
grandism  of  the  apostles  of  abolition,  the  time 
had  not  yet  come  when  even  the  North  would 
pay  the  awful  and  inescapable  price  that  the 
slaves  might  be  free.    The  shame  and  sin  of  the 


THE  LINCOLN  POINT  OF  VIEW  63 

slave  traffic  had  indeed  entered  as  an  iron  into 
many  a  soul.  The  cup  of  its  iniquity  was  indeed 
full.  But  there  was  a  pause  before  the  blow  fell. 
There  had  to  come  a  crisis  and  a  challenge.  Be- 
fore the  war  cloud  had  spent  itself,  the  ultimatum 
of  the  South,  making  the  rights  of  slavery  the 
supreme  and  irreversible  issue,  flashed  a  reveal- 
ing light  into  the  faces  of  the  North.  In  that 
light  the  slave  power  showed  its  true  visage, 
stripped,  unmistakable,  the  relentless  enemy  not 
of  the  negro  alone  but  of  the  nation  as  well. 

But  Lincoln  did  more  for  democracy  in  the 
United  States  than  to  save  the  Union.  Union 
was  not  enough.  There  must  be  freedom  as  well. 
And  to  be  born  free  must  mean  more  than  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  had  as  yet  made  it 
mean.  It  must  mean  freedom  not  for  some  of 
the  people,  not  even  for  a  majority  of  the  people, 
but  for  all  the  people.  Democracy  and  slavery 
cannot  join  hands.  Between  them  there  must  be 
an  "irrepressible  conflict." 

It  was  the  old  story.  That  conflict  belongs  to 
all  the  ages  of  human  progress.  The  struggle 
between  South  and  North  in  the  American  Re- 
public was  not  an  accident.  Lincoln  was  not  re- 
sponsible for  it.  Southern  slavery  was  the  occa- 
sion of  it,  not  the  cause.  Its  roots  ran  far  back 
into  that  old-world  civilisation  from  which  North 
and  South  alike  drew  their  ideals  and  their  life. 


64,        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

It  was  the  struggle  of  the  seventeenth  century  in 
England  over  again.  It  was  the  Cavalier  against 
the  Roundhead,  as  of  old.  The  high-born  Royal- 
ists of  King  Charles  when  they  came  to  America 
left  behind  them  the  forms  of  monarchy,  but  they 
brought  with  them  to  Virginia  the  old  aristocratic 
spirit  and  the  social  ideal  that  made  negro  servi- 
tude in  the  South  seem  not  only  a  privilege,  but  a 
right.  The  men  of  the  Mayflower  brought  to 
New  England  the  Puritan  impulse,  and  that  in- 
extinguishable spark  of  democracy  disturbed  the 
soul  of  the  North.  Between  these  two,  sooner  or 
later,  conflict  had  to  come  in  America,  as  it  came 
two  centuries  before  in  England.  Slavery  was 
the  occasion:  human  rights  against  class  privi- 
lege was  the  issue. 

When  the  time  was  ripe,  Lincoln  struck  the 
blow.  The  men  who  signed  the  Declaration  and 
who  framed  the  Constitution  blinked  the  slave 
question.  Had  it  been  possible  to  save  the  Union 
and  to  retain  slavery,  Lincoln  might  have  blinked 
it  too.  But  it  could  not  be.  The  nature  of  things 
was  against  it.  The  democracy  that  declared  all 
men  to  be  "born  free  and  equal"  gave  the  lie  to 
the  defiant  fallacy  of  the  slave-holding  aristoc- 
racy that  one  man  can  hold  chattel  rights  on  his 
fellow-man.  The  Puritan  conscience  of  New 
England  saved  the  ideals  of  the  Republic  until 
the  rail-splitter  from  Illinois  drove  the  wedge  of 


THE  LINCOLN  POINT  OF  VIEW  65 

truth  into  the  heart  of  the  problem  and  split  off 
the  planter  oligarchy  from  the  life-trunk  of 
American  democracy. 

The  time  had  surely  come  when  democracy  in 
the  United  States  must  needs  justify  itself  alike 
to  its  own  children  and  to  the  world.  It  was  not 
enough  to  point  to  an  academic  and  speculative 
declaration  that  "all  men  are  born  free  and 
equal,"  when,  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  three 
millions  of  human  beings,  as  Lincoln  said,  "went 
out  to  unrequited  toil."  It  was  not  enough  to  talk 
loftily  of  "the  land  of  the  free,"  and  to  echo  Jef- 
ferson's tirades  against  monarchy,  when,  nearly 
a  century  after  the  signing  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  the  only  land  on  all  this  conti- 
nent of  North  America  in  which  in  very  truth  all 
men  were  born  free  was  under  monarchial  gov- 
ernment ;  and  the  only  flag  that  gave  protection  to 
all  classes,  without  respect  to  race  or  colour,  was 
the  Union  Jack.  It  cost  treasure  and  it  cost  blood 
to  wipe  out  that  stain,  but  in  wiping  it  out,  Lin- 
coln justified  American  democracy  before  the  na- 
tions of  the  world. 

But  Lincoln  was  more  than  a  leader  of  his  peo- 
ple. He  was  their  diplomat  as  well.  One  of  his 
greatest  services  to  democracy  in  the  United 
States  was  in  the  strength  and  steadiness  with 
which  he  withstood  the  clamant  pressure  of  the 
crowd,  even  of  the  crowd  that  made  him  Presi- 


66        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

dent.  In  matters  of  diplomacy  he  gave  democ- 
racy worthy  grounds  for  enduring  self-respect  at 
home,  and  he  added  permanently  to  its  prestige 
abroad.  In  his  relations  with  other  nations  he 
so  conducted  himself  that  the  Crowd,  almost  in 
spite  of  itself,  was  given  dignity  in  the  presence 
of  the  Crown. 

This  meant  much  for  the  credit  of  democracy; 
for  it  was  in  matters  of  diplomacy  that  its  ene- 
mies said  democracy  would  be  disproved.  It 
would  not  have  been  strange  had  Lincoln  failed. 
He  was  himself  a  man  of  the  crowd.  The  crowd 
is  notoriously  the  victim  of  impulse  and  emotion : 
the  crowd  spirit  knows  no  law  and  brooks  no 
check.  Again  and  again  the  tumult  of  the  people 
surged  about  Lincoln  on  the  slavery  question,  on 
the  management  of  the  war,  on  problems  of  polity, 
and  on  the  delicate  and  critical  affairs  of  foreign 
relations.  It  would  not  have  been  strange  had  he 
been  stampeded;  others  have  been,  before  his  day 
and  since.  That  he,  a  man  of  the  people,  the  in- 
carnation of  the  powers  and  instincts  and  genius 
of  the  plain  people — that  he  stood  erect,  worthy 
of  the  nation's  honour,  commanding  respect  from 
foreign  peoples  and  recognition  from  their  mon- 
archs — that  he  had  done  this  thing  was  a  service 
to  Government  by  the  People  which  the  people 
themselves  at  first  resented  in  anger,  and  even 
yet  are  slow  to  appreciate  and  understand. 


THE  LINCOLN  POINT  OF  VIEW  67 

In  the  crisis-hour  of  Anglo-American  diplo- 
macy because  of  Lincoln  and  the  Lincoln  point 
of  view,  the  Republicanism  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  the  Royalty  of  Queen  Victoria,  at  their  sum- 
mits, joined  hands.  Then  indeed  it  was  that  de- 
mocracy was  justified  of  her  children. 


THE  NEIGHBOURHOOD  IDEA 

THIS  government  cannot  permanently  endure 
half  slave  and  half  free."  So  declared  Lin- 
coln in  Chicago  in  1856.  And  why?  Why  could 
not  democracy  in  the  American  Republic  en- 
dure, as  it  had  endured  from  the  time  of  inde- 
pendence, half  slave  and  half  free?  It  was  be- 
cause of  the  change  in  the  American  situation. 
The  separate  colonies  had  become  one  great  com- 
monwealth. New  England  and  the  South  were 
bound  together  in  one  self-governing  community. 
Massachusetts  and  Virginia  rubbed  shoulders. 
Free  States  and  slave  States  joined  hands  in  com- 
mon trade,  and  felt  the  ebb  and  flow  of  a  common 
life.  Settlements  from  the  east  moved  into  the 
expanding  territories  of  the  west.  Over  the 
mountains  and  across  the  wilderness  the  cara- 
vans rolled  like  argosies  on  the  high  seas,  and  on 
neutral  ground  the  conflict  began.  The  Missouri 
compromise  of  1854,  like  the  temporising  ex- 
pedient of  Armed  Peace  between  the  nations,  only 
delayed  the  hour:  it  could  not  avert  it.  It  was 
the  struggle  of  two  antagonistic  principles  of  gov- 
ernment: the  struggle  of  privilege  against  justice, 
of  autocracy  against  democracy,  of  despotism 

68 


THE  NEIGHBOURHOOD  IDEA  69 

against  freedom.  When  the  real  meaning  of 
that  struggle  became  plain  in  the  heart  of  the 
American  Commonwealth  Abraham  Lincoln 
spoke  the  everlasting  judgment  of  the  very  Na- 
ture of  Things  for  democracy  everywhere,  when 
he  declared :  "A  house  divided  against  itself  can- 
not stand:  this  government  cannot  permanently 
endure  half  slave  and  half  free." 

It  was  the  fact  of  national  neighbourhood  that 
made  the  difference.  The  nation  had  become  a 
house,  a  home  for  a  vast  family  of  peoples :  un- 
less it  stand  together  the  pillars  of  its  strength 
must  fall.  The  nation  had  become  a  neighbour- 
hood: unless  its  whole  community  life  were  just 
and  free  its  democracy  was  doomed,  its  govern- 
ment could  not  endure.  That  is  the  law  of  the 
neighbourhood.  The  dog-eat-dog  maxim  of  the 
jungle  might  serve  in  the  isolation  of  jungle  life, 
but  life  in  the  national  neighbourhood  is  possible 
only  in  obedience  to  social  law. 

That  law  is  law  to-day  for  all  nations  through- 
out the  expanding  neighbourhood  of  interna- 
tional society.  Life  is  either  a  neighbourhood  or 
a  jungle,  or  is  the  confused  and  half -civilised  mid- 
dle-ground between.  The  rule  of  the  jungle  is 
the  maxim  of  the  brigand  Rob  Roy : 

"They  should  take  who  have  the  power 
And  they  should  keep  who  can." 


70        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

The  law  of  the  neighbourhood  is  the  saying  of 
Jesus:  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self." The  neighbourhood  and  the  jungle  through 
the  ages  are  locked  in  struggle.  The  whole  his- 
tory of  civilisation  might  be  written  in  terms  of 
that  struggle.  The  international  area  is  as  yet 
half  jungle.  America  alone  of  all  the  continents 
can  show  the  world  an  international  boundary 
between  two  proud  and  high-strung  peoples  that, 
over  its  four  thousand  miles,  is  a  civilised  neigh- 
bourhood, swept  clear  of  the  jungle  marks  of 
forts  and  guns  and  warships  and  war.  Other 
nations  on  other  continents  must  learn  America's 
more  excellent  way  or  it  will  mean  hell  for  all 
the  world. 

Many  things  have  happened  in  America,  in 
Europe,  in  Asia,  in  Africa,  in  the  past  twelve- 
month, but  those  happenings  only  add  meaning 
and  intensity  to  the  struggle,  the  age-long  strug- 
gle, between  the  neighbourhood  and  the  jungle 
which  marks  the  course  of  human  history.  If 
we  never  thought  seriously  of  it  before,  the  ex- 
periences of  this  war  year  have  taught  us  that 
no  man  can  live  to  himself,  that  no  nation  can 
stand  alone,  that  no  continent  is  big  enough  or 
self-sufficient  enough  to  isolate  itself  from  the 
life-and-death  struggles  and  tragedies  of  the  rest 
of  the  world. 

The  most  striking  fact  in  life  to-day  is  the  sud- 


THE  NEIGHBOURHOOD  IDEA  71 

den  crowding  together  of  all  nations  and  races 
into  one  world  community.  They  may  still  cher- 
ish the  passions  of  the  jungle,  but  the  ends  of  the 
earth  now  stand  face  to  .face  in  the  world's  front 
street.  No  nation  ever  again  can  either  sorrow 
or  rejoice  alone.  The  continents  and  islands  to- 
gether comprise  the  world-neighbourhood. 

Here  stands  America.  The  Fathers  of  Inde- 
pendence conceived  their  Republic  untrammelled 
by  the  handicaps  of  Europe  and  untangled  in  its 
life.  Canada  on  its  half -continent  thought  itself 
separate  from  the  dread  vortex  of  European  mil- 
itarism by  the  safe  leagues  of  the  estranging  sea. 
But  what  has  happened?  An  old  race  feud  be- 
tween Teuton  and  Slav,  with  which  America  had 
nothing  to  do,  swept  eastern  Europe :  Canada  is 
caught  in  the  deathful  swirl  of  Europe's  war: 
the  United  States  holds  formal  neutrality,  but 
most  of  its  financial  interests  and  all  of  its  insti- 
tutions of  political  freedom  are  involved  and  at 
stake.  There  can  be  no  real  neutrality  when  war 
enters  the  world-neighbourhood. 

The  world  is  too  small,  civilisation  has  gone 
too  wide,  life  is  too  complex  for  the  United  States 
or  Canada  or  any  other  civilised  democracy  to 
live  apart  and  untouched  by  the  barbaric  rem- 
nants of  the  old  world.  The  wheat-fields  of  Sas- 
katchewan, the  corn-fields  of  Nebraska,  the 
sheep-fields  of  New  Zealand,  the  rice-fields  of 


72        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

China,  the  silver-fields  of  Peru,  the  diamond- 
fields  of  South  Africa,  all  the  fields  of  human  in- 
dustry and  human  interest,  every  island  in  the 
lone  Pacific,  every  shore  in  the  Southern  Seas, 
every  whaling  fleet  in  the  frozen  North — they 
must  all  pay  the  toll  of  fear  and  pain  and  loss 
taken  this  year  by  the  war-lords  of  Europe. 
There  can  never  again  be  East  nor  West  nor 
black  nor  white,  nor  bond  nor  free.  The  middle 
walls  of  nations  and  races  are  broken  down.  No 
man's  citizenship  is  now  in  the  United  States 
alone  or  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  No  man 
lives  in  Canada  alone  or  under  the  Union  Jack. 
By  the  world-tragedy  we  are  made  citizens  of 
all  the  world,  brothers  to  the  men  of  Nippon  and 
Bengal,  next-of-kin  to  the  very  men,  to  the  twen- 
ty-five millions  of  men,  of  all  the  great  nations 
of  Europe,  who  have  marched  down  to  the 
world's  Armageddon  to  die.  Our  citizenship  is 
in  the  world-neighbourhood.  The  neighbourhood 
problem  is  our  problem,  yours,  mine,  every  man's. 

What  is  the  neighbourhood  problem  ?  At  bot- 
tom it  is  the  individual  problem  of  living,  and 
the  social  problem  of  living  together. 

The  problem  of  living  is  the  problem  of  a  man's 
right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness. It  claims  the  right  of  a  man  to  enjoy  the 
fruit  of  his  labours.  It  affirms  that  no  able-bodied 
man  shall  be  allowed,  as  Lincoln  said,  to  eat 


THE  NEIGHBOURHOOD  IDEA  73 

bread  by  the  sweat  of  another  man's  brow.  It 
declares  that  difference  in  capacity,  which  yields 
difference  in  achievements  and  in  rewards,  must 
not  interfere  with  democracy's  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity for  all  and  special  privileges  for  none.  It 
requires  that  as  slavery  is  a  dishonour  and  a  deg- 
radation to  humanity,  every  man  shall  be  allowed 
to  be  master  of  his  own  life  and  be  helped  to  make 
that  self -master  ship  intelligent,  just,  and  free. 

And  the  individual  problem  of  living  is  in- 
volved in  the  social  problem  of  living  together. 
The  social  problem  may  be  simple  enough  when 
the  neighbourhood  is  small,  the  individuals  few, 
their  interests  plain  and  their  rights  unassailed. 
But  that  problem  becomes  infinitely  complex  as 
life  widens  its  horizons,  deepens  its  needs,  height- 
ens its  aspirations  and  becomes  more  keenly  sen- 
sitive to  its  own  destiny  and  worth.  That  prob- 
lem is  vast  and  staggering  when  all  the  world  be- 
comes a  world-community,  when  all  nations  are 
next-door  neighbours  one  to  another,  and  when 
the  lawless  individualism  of  the  world-jungle 
must  give  place  to  the  ordered  socialism  of  the 
world-neighbourhood. 

And  this  is  the  world-neighbourhood  problem 
to-day:  the  problem  of  the  individual  nation 
maintaining  the  strength  and  fulness  and  freedom 
of  its  own  life  in  just  relations  with  the  rights 
of  other  nations  in  the  same  world-community: 


74»        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

the  problem  of  one  race  preserving  its  identity 
and  its  ideals  in  the  same  world  order  with  other 
races  and  their  distinctions  and  ideals :  the  prob- 
lem of  one  people,  strong  and  masterful,  securing 
and  enlarging  their  place  in  the  sun  without  shut- 
ting the  needed  sunshine  out  of  the  life  and  his- 
tory of  other  peoples  who  also  have  aspirations 
and  obligations  in  the  same  world-neighbourhood. 
That  is  to-day  the  problem  of  the  world. 

And  to  the  solving  of  that  problem  the  call 
comes  to  every  student,  to  every  teacher,  and  to 
every  true  university  mind.  By  that  problem 
every  political  theory  is  tested  and  every  social 
program.  Philosophy  is  foolishness  if  it  does  not 
understand.  Culture  is  dead  dogma  if  it  does  not 
care.  The  churches  have  killed  their  Christ  if 
their  Christianity  breaks  down  when  the  field  is 
the  world.  A  house  divided  against  itself  can- 
not stand.  World  government  cannot  endure 
half  slave  and  half  free,  half  barbaric  and  half 
civilised,  half  autocracy  and  half  democracy,  half 
war  and  half  peace,  half  Caesar  and  half  Christ. 


CANADA'S  PART  IN  THE  AMERICAN 
CONFLICT 

LINCOLN'S  life  and  Lincoln's  achievement 
were  factors  in  the  democracy  of  Canada. 
It  is  quite  true  Lincoln  himself  knew  almost 
nothing  about  Canadian  affairs.  He  never  set 
foot  on  Canadian  soil.  He  had  no  direct  interest 
in  Canadian  problems.  But  a  life  so  vital  as  his 
could  not  be  lived  to  itself  or  to  the  people  of  his 
own  country  alone.  Sovereignty  stops  at  the 
Great  Lakes  and  the  international  boundary  line, 
but  the  masterful  life  overleaps  all  such  limita- 
tions. The  man  is  greater  than  the  ruler.  In 
Abraham  Lincoln,  Canada  has  had  an  inheritance 
that  through  a  half -century  has  made  for  the 
enrichment  of  public  life  and  the  redemption  of 
public  service. 

The  Canadian  situation  cannot  be  understood, 
and  the  meaning  of  Lincoln  for  Canadian  democ- 
racy cannot  be  appreciated,  unless  there  is  kept 
in  mind  the  Canadian  struggle  for  government 
of  the  people  by  the  people  and  for  the  people. 
That  struggle,  in  Canada,  was  not  an  isolated 
case  in  history.  It  was  only  one  of  a  long  series 
of  conflicts  characteristic  of  Anglo-Saxon  civi- 

75 


76        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

lisation.  It  bore  the  unmistakable  marks  of  the 
Revolution  in  England  under  Cromwell,  and  of 
the  Revolution  in  America  under  Washington. 
The  conflict  in  the  American  Civil  War  between 
the  oligarchy  of  the  South  and  the  democratic 
ideals  of  the  North  had  its  counterpart  in  Can- 
ada. Canada  had  the  seed  of  the  Cavalier  of 
King  Charles,  and  from  the  South,  as  well  as 
from  England,  Canada  received  her  share  of 
the  high-bred  aristocracy.  That  seed  grew  into 
class  privilege,  and  ripened  into  an  autocracy 
as  exclusive  and  as  insolent  as  anything  Southern 
aristocracy  or  old-world  Toryism  could  show. 
And  over  against  it  in  both  countries  there  was 
set  the  restless,  new-born  democracy  of  the  Puri- 
tan, and  of  the  Nonconformist,  and  of  the  rugged 
Cameronian.     Conflict  was  inevitable. 

In  Canada,  the  conflict  came  a  generation 
earlier  than  in  the  United  States  because  the 
neighbourhood  was  smaller.  It  was  in  1837,  the 
first  year  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  that 
the  seething  discontent  of  the  people  against  in- 
justice and  tyranny  found  expression  in  the  rebel- 
lion led  by  Louis  Papineau  in  Lower  Canada  and 
by  William  Lyon  Mackenzie  in  Upper  Canada. 
That  rebellion  was  suppressed  with  little  blood- 
shed, but  the  power  of  the  oligarchy  began  to 
be  broken.  The  rights  for  which  the  people 
fought  were  abundantly  granted  in  1840,  when 


CANADA'S  PART  IN  AMERICAN  CONFLICT,  77 

Canada  was  given,  not  merely  representative 
government,  but  what  Canadians  prize  far  more, 
government  directly  and  immediately  responsible 
to  the  people's  Parliament.  What  was  won  for4 
democracy  in  the  United  States  on  the  battle- 
fields of  the  Revolution,  and  more  truly  in  the 
Civil  War,  was  secured  for  democracy  in  Canada 
in  the  Parliament  of  the  nation.  But  at  bottom 
the  struggle  was  the  same. 

Now,  the  fact  of  that  Canadian  struggle,  the 
elements  represented  in  it,  and  the  issues  of  it, 
must  be  kept  in  mind  by  those  who  would  under- 
stand the  attitude  of  Canadians  to  Lincoln  and 
the  Civil  War.  Of  course,  Canada  was  not  a 
unit  on  that  question,  even  as  England  was  not 
a  unit,  and  the  North  itself  not  a  unit.  In  all 
three  countries  there  was,  and  still  is,  the  con- 
tending of  opposite  types  and  tendencies.  There 
were  in  Canada  and  among  Canadians  those  who 
sympathised  with  the  South,  whose  affinities  were 
with  the  South,  and  who  wished  the  South  to 
win.  There  were  those,  too,  who  believed  then, 
and  still  believe,  that  the  logic  of  the  Constitution 
was  with  the  Secessionists  of  the  South,  but  who 
for  humanity's  sake,  desired,  unreservedly  and 
passionately  desired,  that  the  logic  of  war  should 
make  good  the  cause  of  fhe  North.  For  the 
people  of  Canada,  from  the  very  beginning  of 
the  century,  longed  and  prayed,  and  when  the 


78        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

time  came  not  a  few  of  them  fought  and  died, 
that  the  accursed  mountain  of  human  slavery- 
might  be  dug  away  forever  from  the  face  of  this 
American  continent. 

Canada  once  had  a  taste  of  negro  slavery. 
When  the  Loyalists  of  the  Revolution  chose  the 
old  flag  rather  than  the  new,  they  were  permitted 
to  bring  their  "property"  with  them  to  Canada. 
That  was  before  the  days  of  Parliamentary  in- 
stitutions in  the  Canadian  colonies.  By  a  special 
Act  of  the  British  Parliament  slaves  as  slaves 
were  brought  to  Canada  from  the  slave  States. 
But  the  "peculiar  institution"  of  the  South  was 
short-lived  in  Canada.  The  first  Parliament  of 
Upper  Canada  was  established  in  1792,  and  in 
1793,  in  the  Navy  Hall,  Niagara,  the  first  act 
of  that  first  Parliament  made  for  the  total  aboli- 
tion of  slavery.  That  act  was  drawn  by  the 
newly  appointed  Chief  Justice  Osgoode,  and  was 
signed  by  Governor  Simcoe,  "with  a  grateful 
heart."  It  forbade  the  importation  of  slaves, 
and  their  sale  under  process  of  law.  The  relation 
between  master  and  slave,  a  mild  patriarchal  re- 
lationship, was  allowed  to  continue,  to  the  slave's 
very  great  advantage  But  the  children  of  the 
slave  were  free. 

From  the  passing  of  that  Act  in  1793  until 
Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation  in  1863, 
Canada  was  the  sanctuary  for  the  hunted  runa- 


CANADA'S  PART  IN  AMERICAN  CONFLICT  79 

ways  from  the  slave  States.  It  is  a  story  full 
of  pathos,  of  infinite  tragedy,  and  of  heroism 
forever  honouring  to  human  nature. 

At  first  Canada  was  far  away  from  the  plant- 
er's reach,  and  there  was  safety  in  the  free  States 
of  the  North.  But  in  185 1,  the  slave  power  was 
enthroned  at  Washington,  and  enforced  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Act.  From  that  time  on  there  was  no 
safe  place,  not  in  Chicago,  not  even  in  Boston 
itself,  for  the  fugitive  from  slavery.  It  was  on 
to  Canada,  or  it  was  back  to  Legree  and  the  lash. 
Between  the  Ohio  River  and  the  shores  of  Lake 
Erie  there  stretched  a  vast  and  trackless  forest, 
but  the  thought  of  freedom  was  sweet  even  to 
the  ignorant  negro  slave,  and  many  a  hunted 
refugee  took  the  blazed  trail  that  led  to  liberty. 
It  is  an  American  writer  of  the  slave  history 
who  says:  "Early  in  the  century  the  rumour 
gradually  spread  among  the  negroes  of  the 
Southern  States  that  there  was,  far  away  under 
the  North  Star,  a  land  where  the  flag  of  the 
Union  did  not  float;  where  the  law  declared  all 
men  free  and  equal;  where  the  people  respected 
the  law,  and  the  government,  if  need  be,  en- 
forced it." 

It  is  estimated  that  more  than  sixty  thousand 
negro  slaves  found  freedom  when  they  touched 
Canadian  soil.  The  celebrated  "Underground 
Railroad"  traversed  the  northern  States  with  its 


80        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

network  of  secret  trails,  its  southern  terminals 
far-flung  from  Kansas  to  the  Atlantic  along  the 
Missouri,  the  Ohio,  and  the  Chesapeake,  its 
couriers  in  the  cottonfields  and  the  plantations  of 
the  South,  and  its  northern  terminals  at  Colling- 
wood  and  Sarnia  and  Windsor  and  Amherstburg 
and  Pelee  and  Port  Stanley  and  Port  Burwell 
and  Niagara  and  Hamilton  and  Toronto  and 
Kingston  and  Montreal  and  Halifax.  None  of 
our  modern  railroad  kings  have  so  gridironed  the 
land  or  shown  greater  enterprise  or  downright 
courage.  John  Brown,  of  immortal  memory,  con- 
structed his  own  branch  line  of  that  "Under- 
ground Railroad,"  from  Missouri  through  Iowa 
and  Illinois  and  Michigan  to  the  Canadian  bor- 
der, and  he  made  many  a  trip  to  Canada  before 
"he  died  at  Harper's  Ferry  on  the  fourteenth 
day  of  June";  and  though  his  body  was  left 
"mouldering  in  the  grave,"  over  those  mysterious 
lines,  by  which  the  slave  might  be  free,  "his  soul 
went  marching  on." 

To  the  slaves  Canada  was  Goshen,  not  Canaan. 
Many  of  them  grew  to  comfort  and  prospered. 
But  Emancipation  Day  was  the  day  of  their  de- 
liverance. From  that  day  on  they  began  to  set 
their  faces  again  to  the  warm  southland.  Canada 
never  would  have  had  the  negro  or  a  negro  prob- 
lem had  it  not  been  for  slavery.  It  is  not  a  mat- 
ter of  law,  but  of  latitude.    In  the  northern  zone 


CANADA'S  PART  IN  AMERICAN  CONFLICT  81 

the  thermometer  is  on  the  side  of  the  white  man. 

Until  Lincoln  broke  the  slave  power  in  the 
United  States  slavery  was  a  disturbing  factor 
in  Canadian  life.  The  solid  body  of  Canadian 
opinion  was  opposed  to  slavery.  With  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  the  passing  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  in  1851,  abolitionist  feel- 
ing in  Canada  became  intensely  strong.  This 
was  due  to  one  man  and  his  work  more  than 
to  all  other  influences — excluding,  perhaps, 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  That  man  was  the  Hon. 
George  Brown.  No  man  knows  anything  of 
Canadian  life  and  history  who  does  not  know  of 
George  Brown,  the  founder  and  first  editor  of 
The  Globe.  A  giant  Scot  of  the  sturdiest  type, 
from  the  day  he  arrived  in  Toronto  in  1843  until 
the  day  in  1880  when  in  the  Globe  office  he  fell 
by  the  bullet  of  a  frenzied  assassin,  George 
Brown,  like  Abraham  Lincoln,  was  the  great 
tribune  of  the  people.  He  was  the  strong  voice 
and  the  right  arm  of  the  common  people.  More 
than  any  other  man,  he  left  his  impress  on  Ca- 
nadian democracy,  and  made  immovable  the 
foundations  of  responsible  government. 

George  Brown  in  politics  was  a  Liberal  of  the 
genuine  Scottish  type.  He  could  not  but  abhor 
slavery.  He  saw  it  at  close  range  in  the  Slave 
States.  He  spoke  against  it,  and  he  made  The 
Globe  ring  out  against  it  long  before  Lincoln's 


83        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

voice  was  heard.  He  felt  American  slavery  to  be 
an  international  wrong,  a  Canadian  burden. 
Here  are  some  words  of  his  from  a  speech  against 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  delivered  in  Toronto  in 
March,  1852: 

"The  question  is  asked:  What  have  we 
in  Canada  to  do  with  American  slavery? 
We  have  everything  to  do  with  it.  It  is  a 
question  of  humanity.  It  is  a  question  of 
Christianity.  We  have  to  do  with  it  on  the 
score  of  self-protection.  The  leprosy  of  the 
atrocious  system  affects  all  around  it;  it 
leavens  the  thoughts,  the  feelings,  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  people  who  touch  it.  It  is 
a  barrier  to  liberal  principles.  We  are  along- 
side this  great  evil;  our  people  mingle  with 
it;  we  are  affected  by  it  now.  In  self-pro- 
tection we  are  bound  to  use  every  effort  for 
its  abolition.  And  there  is  another  reason. 
We  are  in  the  habit  of  calling  the  people  of 
the  United  States  'the  Americans';  but  we, 
too,  are  Americans.  On  us,  as  well  as  on 
them,  lies  the  duty  of  preserving  the  honour 
of  the  continent.  On  us,  as  on  them,  rests 
the  noble  trust  of  shielding  free  institutions 
from  the  reproach  of  modern  tyrants.  Who 
that  looks  at  Europe  given  over  to  the  des- 
pots, and  with  but  one  little  island  yet  left 
to  uphold  the  flag  of  freedom,  can  reflect 
without  emotion  that  the  great  Republic  of 
this  continent  nurtures  a  despotism  more  de- 
basing than  them  all  ?    How  crushingly  the 


CANADA'S  PART  IN  AMERICAN  CONFLICT  83 

upholders  of  tyranny  in  other  lands  must 
turn  on  the  friends  of  liberty.  'Behold  your 
free  institutions,'  they  must  say.  'Look  at 
the  American  Republic/  they  must  sneer, 
'proclaiming  all  men  to  be  born  free  and 
equal,  and  keeping  nearly  four  millions  of 
slaves  in  the  most  cruel  bondage.'  " 

The  man  who  spoke  those  words  in  1852  was 
the  dominant  force  in  Canadian  public  opinion, 
the  potent  voice  in  the  Canadian  Parliament.  His 
sentiments  on  slavery  became  the  strong  convic- 
tions of  the  Canadian  people.  With  what  eager- 
ness, therefore,  was  the  rise  of  Lincoln,  the  new 
star  on  the  western  horizon,  watched  by  the  peo- 
ple of  Canada.  From  the  day  of  his  nomination 
in  i860  until  his  tragic  death,  the  name  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  was  as  highly  honoured,  and  his 
course  was  as  intelligently  and  as  anxiously  fol- 
lowed, by  the  people  of  the  Dominion  as  by  those 
of  his  own  Republic.  His  success  was  not  only 
American;  it  was  Canadian  as  well. 

When  the  war  broke  out  feeling  in  Canada 
became  acute.  The  original  elements  of  strife 
were  augmented  by  the  inrush  of  Southerners. 
Many  of  the  best  families  in  Virginia  and  Ken- 
tucky came  for  safety  to  Toronto,  while  their 
men  marched  with  Robert  E.  Lee  and  Stonewall 
Jackson.  The  planter  and  the  preacher  came. 
Their  runaway  slaves  had  been  there  already. 


84        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

Then  came  the  "skedaddler"  from  the  South  and 
the  "bounty  jumper"  from  the  North.  The  agent 
of  the  Confederate  Government  at  Richmond  had 
his  headquarters  in  Toronto,  and  many  an  esca- 
pade is  told  of  how  despatches  and  orders  were 
carried  to  and  fro  through  the  Northern  lines. 
There  were  also  the  recruiting  sergeants  of  the 
North  and  the  conspirators  from  the  South.  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin  of  Lincoln,  and  his 
allies  developed  their  schemes  in  Montreal.  Ben- 
nett Burleigh,  afterwards  famous  as  a  British 
war  correspondent,  was  then  a  daredevil  young 
filibuster,  operating  between  Montreal  and  De- 
troit in  the  Southern  service,  and  was  ringleader 
in  an  attempt  to  release  twenty-five  thousand 
prisoners  from  under  the  Northern  guns  on  an 
island  in  Lake  Erie.  His  trial  for  extradition  in 
Toronto  was  equalled  in  public  interest  only  by 
the  great  trial  of  William  Anderson,  the  negro 
runaway,  in  i860. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  many  of  the  Southern 
leaders  found  in  Toronto  and  about  Niagara 
their  temporary  homes,  and  their  dignity,  cour- 
tesy, and  fine  culture  made  them  welcome  citizens. 
Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  himself  visited  Toronto  im- 
mediately after  his  release  from  prison,  and  his 
wife  made  her  home  on  the  Canadian  shore  of 
Lake  Erie,  and  there  she  died  in  the  new  day  of 
peace. 


CANADA'S  PART  IN  AMERICAN  CONFLICT  85 

All  these  conflicting  forces,  social  as  well  as 
commercial,  were  at  work  in  Canadian  public 
opinion  during  the  four  years  of  the  war.  A 
small  group  remained  stout  supporters  of  the 
Southern  cause,  but  the  great  body  of  Canadian 
sentiment  was  with  the  North.  While  the  South- 
ern sympathisers  were  welcoming  with  cheers 
the  poor  old  President  of  the  overthrown  Con- 
federacy at  the  wharf  in  Toronto  in  1867,  the 
children  in  the  schools  throughout  the  country 
were  singing  on  their  playgrounds: 

"We'll  hang  Jeff  Davis  on  a  sour  apple  tree, 
As  we  go  marching  on." 

In  a  book  by  a  professor  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, published  at  the  time  of  the  Lincoln  cen- 
tennial, this  statement  is  made:  "Feeling  in  the 
United  States  was  greatly  incensed  because  of 
the  sympathy  of  Canada  with  the  South  in  the 
Civil  War."  The  answer  to  that  statement  is 
that  there  were  more  than  forty-eight  thousand 
Canadian  enlistments  in  the  armies  of  the  North, 
and  eighteen  thousand  Canadian  soldiers  died  for 
the  Union  cause.  They  were  in  the  army  of 
the  Potomac,  in  the  Army  of  the  James,  in  the 
Army  af  the  Cumberland,  in  the  Army  of  the 
Tennessee,  and  in  the  Army  of  the  Rio  Grande. 
They  were  with  Grant  at  Vicksburg.  They  were 
with  Thomas  at  Chickamauga.    They  were  with 


BG        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

Custer  in  the  West.  They  were  with  Meade  at 
Gettysburg.  They  burned  through  the  Shenan- 
doah with  Sheridan.  They  marched  with  Sher- 
man to  the  sea.  On  every  great  battlefield  be- 
tween the  Mississippi  and  the  Potomac  the  sons 
of  Canada  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the 
men  of  the  Union.  They  languished  in  Libbey 
Prison.  They  rotted  in  the  Andersonville  Camp. 
They  answered  great  Lincoln's  call ;  they  fought 
under  the  Stars  and  Stripes;  they  died  for 
America's  honour,  but  in  life  and  in  death  the  flag 
of  their  hearts  was  the  Union  Jack. 

But  Lincoln's  life  was  significant  for  Canada 
in  directions  other  than  those  suggested  by  slav- 
ery and  the  Civil  War.  His  stand  for  Federal 
authority  as  against  State  sovereignty  had  its 
effect  on  political  opinion  in  Canada.  During 
the  years  of  Lincoln's  regime  the  question  of  the 
union  of  the  Provinces  of  British  North  America 
was  under  discussion,  and  the  Act  of  Confedera- 
tion was  passed  in  1867.  The  experience  in  the 
United  States  was  influential  in  Canada.  The 
uncertainty  in  the  Constitution  of  the  Republic, 
of  which  the  Secessionists  took  advantage,  was 
avowedly  and  deliberately  guarded  against  by 
the  Fathers  of  the  Canadian  Confederation. 
They  left  not  a  shadow  of  a  doubt  as  to  Federal 
sovereignty. 

And  Lincoln's  work  in  preserving  the  Union 


CANADA'S  PART  IN  AMERICAN  CONFLICT  87 

and  determining  that  there  should  be  but  one 
Republic,  even  though  he  may  have  strained  the 
terms  of  the  Constitution,  was  approved  by  the 
best  Canadian  opinion.  I  quote  again  from  the 
Hon.  George  Brown.  In  a  speech  of  unreserved 
congratulations  on  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proc- 
lamation, in  Toronto  in  February,  1863,  Mr. 
Brown  said: 

"No  man  who  loves  human  freedom  and 
desires  the  elevation  of  mankind  could  con- 
template without  the  deepest  regret  a  failure 
of  that  great  experiment  of  self-government 
in  the  United  States.  Had  Mr.  Lincoln  con- 
sented to  the  secession  of  the  Southern 
States,  had  he  admitted  that  each  State  could 
at  any  moment,  and  on  any  plea,  take  its 
departure  from  the  Union,  he  would  simply 
have  given  his  consent  to  the  complete  rup- 
ture of  the  federation.  The  Southern  States 
and  the  border  States  would  have  gone.  The 
Western  States  might  soon  have  followed. 
The  States  on  the  Pacific  would  not  have 
been  long  behind.  Where  the  practice  of 
secession,  once  commenced,  would  have 
ended,  would  be  difficult  to  say.  Petty  Re- 
publics would  have  covered  the  continent; 
each  would  have  had  its  standing  army  and 
its  standing  feuds;  and  we,  too,  in  Canada, 
were  it  only  in  self-defence,  must  have  been 
compelled  to  arm.  I  for  one  cannot  look 
back  on  the  history  of  the  American  Re- 


88        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

public  without  feeling  that  all  this  would 
have  been  a  world-wide  misfortune.  How 
can  we  ever  forget  that  the  United  States 
territory  has,  for  nearly  a  century,  been  an 
ever-open  asylum  for  the  poor  and  persecuted 
from  every  land?  Millions  have  fled  from 
suffering  and  destitution  in  every  corner  of 
Europe  to  find  happy  homes  and  overflowing 
prosperity  in  the  Republic.  Is  there  a  hu- 
man being  could  rejoice  that  all  this  should 
be  ended? 


That  was  the  view  of  the  soundest  and  best- 
informed  Canadian  public  opinion  in  Lincoln's 
own  day.  The  years  that  have  intervened  have 
confirmed  that  opinion.  Canadians  of  to-day  rise 
up  and  bless  the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  be- 
cause by  him  it  was  determined  that  the  Canadian 
Dominion,  now  stretching  from  ocean  to  ocean, 
would  have  to  do  on  this  continent  not  with  two 
Republics,  as  seemed  inevitable,  not  with  four  as 
seemed  possible,  but  with  one  great  Nation,  along 
the  four  thousand  miles  of  international  bound- 
ary, and  holding  sovereign  sway  from  the  Great 
Lakes  to  the  Gulf. 

For  that  great  fact  in  international  relation- 
ships Canada  gives  thanks  at  the  mention  of 
Lincoln's  name.  All  that  Lincoln  did  in  the  cause 
of  human  freedom  and  guarding  the  sacredness 
of  human  rights  he  did  for  every  people.    His 


CANADA'S  PART  IN  AMERICAN  CONFLICT  89 

own  great  life  is  the  inheritance  of  all  the  world. 
Under  his  strong  hand  democracy  in  the  United 
States  survived  the  utmost  strain,  and  because 
of  that  triumph  Canada  has  been  heartened  in 
its  great  task  of  laying  the  foundations  and 
erecting  the  structure  of  another  American 
democracy  in  which  all  men  shall  be  born  free 
and  equal,  and  where  government  of  the  people 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people  shall  have  an- 
other chance. 


CANADA  AND  THE  WORLD  PROBLEM 


Ill 

AN  ADVENTURE  IN  WORLD  POLITICS 

WHY  mention  Canada  as  a  factor  in  World 
Politics? 

When  the  history  of  the  world's  great  war 
comes  to  be  written  Canada  will  not  be  unnamed. 
Again  and  again,  and  for  weeks  together,  in  the 
United  States  as  well  as  in  Britain  and  in  France, 
the  courage,  the  heroism,  the  deeds  of  dauntless 
daring  done  by  Canadian  troops  at  the  battle- 
front  have  been  told  with  acclaim  that  went  round 
the  world.  Names  like  Ypres  and  St.  Julien  and 
Festubert  will  have  associated  with  them,  in  the 
war  historian's  record,  the  name  of  Canada.  But 
that  was  world  War,  not  world  Politics. 

And  yet  the  most  notable  thing  in  Canada's 
half-century  of  national  history,  the  thing  that 
will  tell  most  enduringly  in  the  life  of  the  world, 
will  not  be  any  incident  in  any  military  campaign, 
be  it  never  so  splendid.  For  a  thousand  years  and 
more  the  races  whose  bloods  are  mingled  in  Ca- 
nadian veins  have  played  the  courageous,  the 
chivalric,  the  invincible  in  the  fierce  hour  of  des- 
tiny on  the  field  of  battle.  Many  of  the  shining 
pages  of  the  world's  black  history  of  war  were 
filled  by  the  race-forbears  of  the  men  who  made 

93 


94        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

the  name  of  Ypres  immortal,  and  saved  the  day 
for  Britain  at  St.  Julien. 

But  what  will  tell  most  widely  and  most  per- 
manently in  history,  not  for  Canada  alone,  but 
for  Britain  and  for  the  world,  will  be  the  thing 
done  in  Canadian  politics  which  made  Canada  a 
self-governing  nation,  which  opened  the  way  to 
nationhood  for  other  colonies  of  the  British  Em- 
pire, and  which  ever  since  has  been  working  the 
transformation  of  the  spirit,  the  constitution  and 
the  world  relations  of  the  Empire  itself.  Can- 
ada's greatest  achievement,  like  the  greatest 
achievement  of  the  United  States,  is  in  the  realm 
of  world  politics.  It  had  to  do  with  democracy, 
not  war.  It  helps  to-day  to  a  solving  of  the 
World  Problem. 

Canada  was  a  colony  of  Britain,  subject  in 
all  things  to  British  legislation  and  British  ad- 
ministration. Canada  is  now  a  nation  exercising 
the  full  powers  of  national  self-government 
through  the  institutions  of  a  free  Parliament 
elected  by  Canadians  from  among  Canadian  citi- 
zens and  responsible  only  to  Canadian  approval 
or  censure.  That  change  in  political  status  and 
responsibility  from  colonial  dependence  to  na- 
tional autonomy  was  made  without  secession, 
without  revolution,  without  alienation  from  the 
mother  country,  and  without  any  rupture  in  Can- 
ada's political  development  or  any  sacrifice  of 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  WORLD  POLITICS     95 

Canada's  national  background  in  the  thousand 
years  of  British  history.  A  nation  was  born 
without  the  travail  pangs  of  war. 

That  achievement  is  without  a  precedent  in  all 
the  world.  Never  before  in  the  world's  history 
did  any  colony  of  any  empire  come  from  colonial 
subjection  to  national  self-government  except  by 
cutting  the  painter  and  striking  for  independence. 
Canada  released  a  new  idea  in  internationalism, 
and  by  its  achievement  made  possible  the  world 
commonwealth  of  British  nations. 

This  change  in  Canada's  standing,  the  change 
from  a  subject  colony  to  a  self-governing  nation, 
was  not  done  in  a  day,  or  even  in  a  generation.  It 
was  a  thing  of  evolution,  of  vital  growth,  and 
so  gradual  was  it,  so  natural,  so  inevitable,  that 
common  opinion  in  other  nations,  even  among 
the  people  and  the  public  journals  of  Britain  and 
of  the  United  States,  has  not  yet  taken  note  either 
of  the  fact  of  that  change  or  of  its  stupendous 
significance.  It  is  still  the  habit  to  speak  of 
Canada  as  a  "colony"  of  Britain.  Not  in  Ger- 
many alone,  but  in  the  United  States  also,  and 
since  the  present  war  began,  it  has  been  common 
enough  to  have  Canada's  action  in  sending  an 
army  from  North  America  to  the  war-front  in 
Europe  explained  by  the  Imperial  compulsion  ex- 
ercised by  Britain  over  her  colonial  possessions. 
In  the  eyes  of  Germany  that  compulsion  by  Brit- 


96        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

ain  extenuated  Canada's  crime,  and  to  many 
otherwise  intelligent  Americans  it  minimised 
whatever  of  credit  that  action  may  have  brought 
to  Canada.  If  Canada's  military  service  is  com- 
pelled by  any  power  outside  of  Canada  the  blame 
and  the  praise  alike  are  lessened.  Until  the  un- 
precedented fact  in  its  full  significance  is  brought 
home  to  the  consciousness  of  outside  peoples  by 
the  happenings  of  these  frightful  war  months  the 
world  will  not  understand  the  range  and  the  con- 
tent of  that  new  thing  in  world  politics,  the  de- 
mocracy of  free  peoples,  the  commonwealth  of 
free  nations,  the  world  partnership  of  sovereign 
States,  which  is  still  named,  or  misnamed,  the 
British  Empire. 

But  Canadians  themselves  have  been  slow  to 
understand,  slow  to  believe.  Indeed  the  thing 
done  in  Canada's  history  was  not  a  thing  of 
measured  purpose  and  deliberate  choice.  The 
end  was  not  seen  from  the  beginning.  The  pio- 
neers of  Canadian  nationhood  went  out  not 
knowing  whither  they  went.  Their  goal  was  not 
in  sight.  A  Divinity  shaped  their  ends,  while 
they  themselves  saw  but  one  step  at  a  time,  and 
were  rough  hewers  of  the  way.  The  men  of 
the  farther  vision  were  to  their  own  generation 
rebels  and  traitors.  From  the  days  of  William 
Lyon  Mackenzie  and  Louis  Papineau  until  now 
the  prophets  of  the  larger  liberty  were  stoned 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  WORLD  POLITICS     97 

for  disloyalty  by  their  own  generation,  and  the 
next  generation  of  loyalists  builded  monuments 
to  their  memory. 

From  the  very  beginning  Canada's  national 
interests  suffered  through  the  exigencies  of  po- 
litical parties  and  the  prejudice  and  perversion 
which  inflamed  party  passion  always  breeds.  The 
unreasoning  antipathy  to  Britain  cultivated  and 
organised  in  the  United  States,  long  after  the 
Revolution,  to  serve  the  ends  of  ambitious  Amer- 
ican politicians,  has  had  its  counterpart  in  Can- 
ada, in  the  periodical  outbreaks  of  animosity 
towards  the  United  States.  The  growth  of  Ca- 
nadian national  feeling  was  often  checked  and 
sometimes  perverted  by  appeals  to  loyalty  and  to 
Canada's  debt  to  Britain,  made  in  Parliament 
and  on  the  hustings,  to  serve  some  party  advan- 
tage which  seemed  for  the  moment  to  be  im- 
portant. Every  great  Canadian  Patriot,  from 
the  leaders  of  what  was  called  the  "Rebellion  of 
1837"  on  to  the  leaders  of  Reciprocity  in  191 1, 
and  including  Robert  Baldwin  and  Louis  Lafon- 
taine,  Sir  John  Macdonald,  the  Tory  statesman, 
as  well  as  Hon.  George  Brown,  the  tribune  of 
Canadian  Liberalism,  and  Sir  Charles  Tupper, 
as  well  as  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier — every  genuine 
leader  of  Canadian  thought  toward  the  goal  of 
true  Canadian  national  sentiment  has  been,  at 
some  time,  either  suspected  within  his  own  party 


98        DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

or  denounced  by  his  political  opponents  as  dis- 
loyal to  British  connection  or  an  enemy  of  British 
Imperialism.  History  has  justified,  and  will 
justify  still  more,  the  men  whose  clearer  vision 
led  them  forward  into  untried  paths  when  their 
fellows  doubted  and  fell  back.  But  history  can- 
not recover  to  Canada  the  loss  to  national  inter- 
ests which  the  nation  always  must  suffer  when 
reaction  defeats  reform,  or  when  the  lowest  good 
to  the  party  triumphs  over  the  highest  and  the 
best  for  the  State. 

But  through  all  the  ebbs  and  the  eddies  of 
political  controversy  the  true  Canadian  national- 
ism moved  forward.  More  than  seventy  years 
ago  the  British  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Col- 
onies exercised  the  right  of  dictation  in  matters 
affecting  the  trade  and  tariff  policy  of  Canada, 
but  exercised  it  for  the  last  time.  To-day  the 
Government  of  Britain  would  no  more  think  of 
interfering  in  any  way  whatsoever  in  any  matter 
of  Canadian  policy,  considered  or  adopted  by  any 
responsible  Canadian  Government  and  approved 
by  a  Canadian  Parliament,  even  though  that  mat- 
ter was  one  of  direct  treaty  agreement  with  a 
foreign  nation  or  one  that  prejudiced  the  trade 
interests  of  the  British  people — no  more  think 
of  that  than  of  interfering  with  proposals  and 
decisions  of  the  Government  of  Sweden  or  Brazil. 
Canada  has  come  to  national  autonomy. 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  WORLD  POLITICS     99 

And  this  affirmation  of  Canada's  trade  and 
tariff  independence  in  no  way  infringes  on  the 
prerogatives  of  what  even  acknowledged  Im- 
perialists call  British  Imperialism,  as  witness  the 
applauded  declaration  of  the  Right.  Hon.  Arthur 
J.  Balfour  as  leader  of  his  Majesty's  loyal  Oppo- 
sition in  the  British  House  of  Commons  in  1910. 
The  Laurier  Administration  in  Canada  effected 
a  trade  agreement  between  Canada  and  France 
directly,  and  not  through  the  British  Colonial 
Office  or  by  British  Commissioners.  On  that 
point  Mr.  Balfour  spoke  these  deliberate  and 
very  meaningful  words : 

"The  Dominion  of  Canada,  technically,  I 
suppose,  it  may  be  said,  carried  on  their 
negotiations  with  the  knowledge  of  his 
Majesty's  representative,  but  it  was  a  purely 
technical  knowledge.  I  do  not  believe  that 
his  Majesty's  Government  was  ever  con- 
sulted at  a  single  stage  of  those  negotia- 
tions. I  do  not  believe  they  ever  informed 
themselves,  or  offered  any  opinion,  as  to 
what  was  the  best  policy  for  Canada  under 
the  circumstances.  I  think  they  were  well 
advised.  But  how  great  is  the  change  and 
how  inevitable.  It  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge — and,  may  I  add,  not  a  matter 
of  regret,  but  a  matter  of  pride  and  rejoic- 
ing— that  the  great  Dominions  beyond  the 
seas  are  becoming  great  nations  in  them- 
selves." 


100      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

Two  years  later,  after  negotiations  had  been 
carried  on  by  the  Canadian  Government  directly 
with  Washington  for  larger  reciprocity  in  trade 
between  Canada  and  the  United  States,  and  after 
the  Laurier  Government  had  been  succeeded  in 
191 1  by  the  Government  of  Sir  Robert  Borden, 
the  position  taken  up  by  Mr.  Balfour  in  1910 
touching  the  national  self-government  of  Canada 
was  made  even  more  unmistakable  by  Premier 
Asquith.  Some  criticism  had  been  made  of  the 
British  Ambassador  at  Washington,  at  that  time 
the  Right  Hon.  James  Bryce,  and  speaking  in 
reply  in  the  British  House  of  Commons  in  May, 
1912,  the  Prime  Minister  said: 

"The  question  of  what  is  most  to  the 
advantage  of  Canada  is  primarily  one  for 
the  Canadian  Government.  Mr.  Bryce  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  views  or  policy  of 
the  Canadian  Government.  The  negotia- 
tions were  initiated  and  carried  on  by  Can- 
ada. The  British  Ambassador  in  pursuance 
of  his  plain  duty  did  not  interfere  with  the 
conference,  but  if  asked  for  advice  gave  it. 
For  Mr.  Bryce  to  have  interfered  with  the 
negotiations  going  on  at  Washington  upon 
matters  which  were  within  Canada's  own 
competence  would  have  been  naturally  re- 
sented by  Canada.  Generally  there  had  been 
no  difference  of  opinion  in  the  Dominion 
about  that,  whatever  may  be  the  differences 
between   Canadians    themselves    regarding 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  WORLD  POLITICS     101 

reciprocity.  The  manner  in  which  Mr.  Bryce 
has  performed  his  duties  has  been  of  great 
advantage,  inspiring  Canada  with  confidence 
in  the  British  Ambassador  at  Washington, 
who  will  always  be  prepared  to  support  the 
present  Canadian  Government  no  less  than 
its  predecessors  in  any  negotiations  it  may 
be  engaged  in  with  the  United  States." 

To  be  sure,  such  views  as  those  expressed  by 
Mr.  Balfour  and  Mr.  Asquith  were  not  always 
the  views  either  of  Conservative  leaders  or  of 
Liberal  leaders  in  Britain.  Gladstone,  as  well 
as  Beaconsfield,  while  assenting  to  so  much  of 
self-government  for  Canada  as  was  involved  in 
the  British  North  America  Act  of  1867,  feared 
that  the  issue  of  the  Confederation  of  Canada 
would  be  complete  separation  from  Britain.  They 
saw  nothing  for  it — the  logic  of  events  in  the 
history  of  the  American  colonies  the  century 
earlier  being  their  guide — British  leaders  saw 
nothing  for  it  in  the  event  of  the  growth  of  na- 
tional sentiment  in  Canada  but  a  demand  for 
Canadian  independence.  And  at  that  time  inde- 
pendence meant  separation.  But  had  that  de- 
mand been  made  by  a  united  Canada  it  would 
have  been  granted  without  war  and  without  feel- 
ings of  bitterness  and  alienation.  How  vast  and 
complete  the  change  has  been  is  indicated,  not 
only  by  the  declarations  of  the  great  successors  of 


102      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

Beaconsfield  and  Gladstone  a  half-century  later, 
but  also  by  the  events  in  Canada  and  in  Britain 
in  191 5.  A  far  larger  independence  than  the 
Fathers  of  Confederation  ever  dreamed  has 
yielded  a  far  more  splendid  loyalty  than  the  bar- 
gainings of  fear  and  the  counsels  of  prudence 
ever  could  have  secured. 

Nor  was  Canadian  public  opinion  always  clear 
as  to  the  larger  results  that  would  follow  Ca- 
nadian autonomy  in  matters  of  direct  treaty  ne- 
gotiations with  foreign  nations.  Even  so  late 
as  1882  Sir  John  Macdonald  himself,  in  answer 
to  Hon.  Edward  Blake,  said: — "Disguise  it  as 
you  will,  this  means  separation  and  independ- 
ence." Ten  years  later  Sir  George  Foster,  while 
less  dogmatic  than  his  great  chief,  offered  this 
alternative  and  asked  this  question: — "There  is 
only  one  thing,  only  a  single  power  left,  which 
would  show  the  difference  between  Canada  as 
she  is  to-day  and  a  complete  and  absolute  sover- 
eignty, and  that  is  the  power,  the  imperial  and 
absolute  power  of  making  treaties  with  other 
countries,  subject  to  no  conditions  and  to  no  con- 
trol except  her  own  interests  as  shown  through 
her  own  Parliament  and  her  own  Government. 
Are  we  prepared  to  take  that  other  step  with  all 
the  consequences  which  inevitably  follow  it?" 
Canada  has  taken  that  step,  and  the  "inevitable" 
consequences  did  not  follow.     It  did  not  mean 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  WORLD  POLITICS     103 

"separation  and  independence."  And  no  respon- 
sible Canadian  statesman,  Conservative  or  Lib- 
eral, would  to-day  argue  that  that  step,  or  any 
later  step  towards  full-grown  Canadian  nation- 
hood, should  be  retraced.  Our  fears  of  yester- 
day have  been  disproved.  The  movement  of 
to-morrow  will  be  forward  and  not  back,  up- 
ward and  not  down,  to  that  partnership  of  equal 
national  rights  and  of  full  national  responsibili- 
ties towards  which,  through  the  ages,  British 
freedom  moves. 

And  that  consummation  in  a  commonwealth 
of  free  nations  was  made  possible  through  Can- 
ada's first  adventure  in  world  politics. 


TRANSFORMING  THE  EMPIRE 

THE  transforming  of  the  British  Empire,  by 
which  in  its  long  struggle  democracy  was 
seen  to  triumph  over  despotism,  and  even  the 
very  term  "Empire,"  as  applied  to  British  sov- 
ereignty over  self-governing  British  Domin- 
ions, was  made  to  appear  both  unjust  and  mis- 
leading— that  was  the  most  far-reaching  political 
achievement  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  eighteenth  century  closed  for  Britain  with 
the  record  of  a  revolution  and  a  war :  a  regretta- 
ble revolution  of  over-seas  British-bred  peoples 
against  the  blinded  autocracy  of  their  British 
Government :  a  disastrous  war  that  not  only  cost 
Britain  her  American  colonies,  but  wounded  her 
own  pride  of  freedom,  and  left  a  stain  on  her 
escutcheon,  which  her  subsequent  splendid  leader- 
ship in  world  democracy  indeed  wiped  out,  but 
the  bitter  memories  of  which  her  estranged  col- 
onies did  not  soon  forget.  The  twentieth  cen- 
tury opened  with  a  new  Britain,  her  world  pres- 
tige greater  than  ever  before,  her  people  at  home 
happier  in  their  steadily  enlarging  democratic 
freedom,  and  round  the  world  her  daughter  na- 

104 


TRANSFORMING  THE  EMPIRE         105 

tions  rising  up  in  their  own  freedom  and  strength 
to  form  with  her  a  British  partnership  in  which, 
as  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman  affirmed  in 
1907,  "freedom  and  independence  is  the  essence 
of  the  Imperial  connection."  The  century  be- 
tween was  the  time  of  travail  and  transforma- 
tion. In  it  there  was  a  new  birth  of  freedom 
among  the  British  peoples. 

The  nineteenth  century  was  the  time  of  con- 
flict— the  conflict  of  ideas.  There  were  indeed 
commotions  among  the  nations,  disturbances  of 
the  unstable  balance  of  power  in  Europe,  con- 
flicts and  convulsions  over  all  the  world,  in  which 
Britain  and  the  British  people  were  involved. 
But  for  Britain  the  real  struggle  was  at  home. 
The  conflict  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  in  the 
British  mind.  It  was  the  agelong  and  irrepressi- 
ble conflict  of  right  against  privilege — the  com- 
mon rights  of  the  many  against  the  special  privi- 
leges of  the  few — the  right  of  conscience,  of 
private  judgment,  of  social  co-operation  for  the 
prosperity  of  each  and  the  good  of  all — the  right 
of  every  man  to  exercise  moral  mastership  over 
his  own  life  and  to  join  with  his  fellows  in  the  re 
sponsibility  of  a  free  people  to  govern  them- 
selves. At  the  back  of  all  external  manifestations 
of  vitality  and  activity,  throughout  an  era  of 
which  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  centre,  this 
deeper  moral  struggle  for  a  free  man's  chance 


106      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

in  the  whole  realm  of  life,  religious  and  political, 
social  and  industrial,  disturbed  the  content  of  all 
grades  of  society  and  worked  for  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  British  nation. 

There  was  at  work  the  primitive  Anglo-Saxon 
idea  of  social  democracy  that  kept  the  light  burn- 
ing through  all  the  darkest  ages  since  Roman 
domination  had  been  withdrawn  from  Britain. 
There  was  also  the  democratic  strain  in  the  Celtic 
blood  that,  despite  recurrent  betrayal  and  arro- 
gant despotism,  was  never  quite  lost  out  of  the 
British  heart.  The  ideas  of  democracy  spread. 
The  impulses  of  freedom  gained  in  power.  The 
antagonism  between  democratic  rights  and  aris- 
tocratic privilege  came  to  a  head  when  Lord 
North,  as  Prime  Minister,  surrendered  to  the  un- 
democratic George  III.,  in  the  matter  of  taxing 
the  American  colonies  that  were  without  repre- 
sentation in  the  British  Parliament,  and  impress- 
ing that  taxation  by  force  of  arms.  Democracy 
then  found  potent  voice  in  Chatham  and  Burke 
and  Fox.  From  that  colossal  and  arrogant  blun- 
der, the  blunder  of  the  Tory  Junkers  of  that  time, 
British  political  feeling  reacted.  Reaction  from 
despotism  carried  the  British  people  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  into  a  political  democracy  more 
undisguised  and  unhampered  than  the  revolting 
American  colonies  themselves  had,  at  that  time 
or  for  many  a  day,  attained  in  their  own  Repub- 


TRANSFORMING  THE  EMPIRE         107 

lie.  Those  political  struggles  reduced  the  au- 
thority and  power  of  the  Monarch  within  clearly- 
defined  constitutional  limits.  The  extension  of 
the  Parliamentary  franchise  lengthened  the  cords 
of  democracy.  The  rise  of  responsible  govern- 
ment gave  Parliament  control  of  the  King's  Min- 
isters, as  well  as  of  the  King.  And  now,  in  the 
Britain  of  to-day,  democracy  means,  and  more  and 
more  will  be  made  to  mean,  that  the  power  of 
government,  not  in  home  affairs  alone,  but  in 
the  affairs  of  foreign  policy  as  well,  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  people.  The  people  of  Britain  are — 
and  in  the  day  after  the  war  must  prove  them- 
selves in  very  truth  to  be — the  Government  of 
Great  Britain. 

And  this  transformation,  so  far  at  least  as 
it  involves  the  outer  Dominions  of  the  Empire, 
belongs  especially  to  the  half -century  distin- 
guished at  one  end  by  the  coming  to  nationhood 
of  Canada  and  at  the  other  by  the  coming  to 
nationhood  of  South  Africa.  Those  two  events, 
in  their  world  significance  epoch-making  events 
— the  slow  and  hesitating  acknowledgment  of 
Canada's  right  to  national  self-government,  and 
the  ready,  generous  and  unrestricted  national 
constitution  granted  South  Africa  while  as  yet 
the  war  clouds  of  rebellion  had  scarcely  vanished 
away — signalise  not  only  the  growth  of  national- 
ism in  the  British  Dominions  overseas,  but  also, 


108      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

and  this  is  significant  for  the  world,  the  wide  and 
virile  growth  of  British  democracy  at  home,  and 
the  emergence  of  the  true  idea  of  internationalism 
as  displacing  the  old  notion  of  imperialism  in  the 
British  mind. 

Canada's  adventure  into  world  politics  is  of 
capital  importance,  both  politically  and  histor- 
ically, because  it  was  an  experiment.  It  blazed 
a  new  trail.  It  might  have  failed,  but,  perchance, 
another  following  after  might  succeed.  But  in 
that  it  did  succeed  it  gave  assurance  of  success 
to  every  colony  of  free-minded  people  who  had 
the  instinct  for  self-government,  who  desired  self- 
government,  and  who,  uniting  in  a  common  na- 
tional sentiment,  were  ready  to  take  the  risks  and 
to  accept  the  responsibilities  which  nationhood  in- 
volves. The  case  of  South  Africa  is  of  no  less 
importance.  It  illustrates  how  complete  has  been 
the  abandonment  of  the  old  policy  of  imperialism, 
how  justified  the  new  policy  of  freedom  and  in- 
dependence, and  how  inviting  and  ennobling  the 
prospect  for  the  still  larger  policy  of  partnership 
among  the  free  nations  of  the  British  democ- 
racy. 

There  is  indeed  nowhere  in  all  literature  a  life- 
drama  politically  more  inspiriting,  or  a  nation's 
history  more  profoundly  suggestive  of  how  em- 
pire may  be  lost  and  empire  may  be  won,  than 
is  the  simple  but  romantic  story  of  Louis  Botha, 


TRANSFORMING  THE  EMPIRE         109 

the  soldier,  the  patriot  and  the  statesman,  and 
the  brief  but  thrilling  record  of  the  newest  Brit- 
ish nation,  the  Union  of  South  Africa,  of  which 
he  is  the  most  honoured  son  and  the  first  Prime 
Minister. 

Fifteen  years  ago  Mr.  Botha,  still  a  young 
man,  was  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Boer 
forces  that,  under  President  Paul  Kruger's  po- 
litical leadership,  took  up  arms  against  British' 
suzerainty,  and  for  three  years  defied  the  mil- 
itary power  and  genius  of  the  British  Empire. 
He  was  personally  opposed  to  Kruger's  policy  of 
war,  but  when  the  Boer  leader  declared  for  armed 
attack  he  gave  his  support  and  never  faltered.  In 
many  of  the  battles  most  disastrous  to  the  Brit- 
ish troops  the  Boers  were  led  by  Botha.  In  1901 
the  decree  of  perpetual  banishment  from  South 
Africa  was  proclaimed  against  him  and  his  fol- 
lowers by  the  British  Government,  the  order  be- 
ing issued  by  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain  as  Colonial 
Secretary  in  the  Unionist  Administration.  When 
the  Unionists  were  defeated  in  1905  and  the 
Liberals  came  into  power,  the  war  being  over, 
the  policy  of  distrust  and  coercion  was  aban- 
doned. Under  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman 
patience  and  generosity  took  the  place  of  restric- 
tion and  force.  A  constitution  was  granted  the 
Transvaal,  uniting  British  and  Boer  populations 
under  free  Parliamentary  institutions.    In  19 10 


110      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

the  several  South  African  States  were  confed- 
erated in  the  Union  of  South  Africa,  and  of  this 
new  national  unit  among  the  British  Dominions 
the  first  Prime  Minister  is  Louis  Botha,  who, 
fourteen  years  ago,  was  decreed  an  outlaw  for- 
ever from  the  land  in  which  to-day  he  is  ac- 
claimed the  most  honoured  citizen  and  the  most 
trusted  statesman. 

In  London  in  191 1,  on  the  great  occasion  of 
the  coronation  of  King  George,  the  two  per- 
sonages, next  to  Royalty,  to  whom  was  accorded, 
everywhere  and  always,  by  the  courtiers  and  by 
the  populace,  the  utmost  measure  of  honour,  were 
the  two  statesmen  who  represented  the  oldest  and 
the  youngest  of  the  self-governing  overseas  Do- 
minions of  which  George  V.  was  crowned  king: 
Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier,  Prime  Minister  of  the  Do- 
minion of  Canada,  and  the  Right  Hon.  Louis 
Botha,  Prime  Minister  of  the  Union  of  South 
Africa.  It  touched  the  world's  imagination  to  see 
in  the  front  rank  of  British  statesmen,  two  men 
of  a  blood  that  was  not  British  blood,  the  one 
a  French-Canadian,  the  other  a  South  African 
Boer.  And  they  both  are  loyal  to  British  insti- 
tutions of  freedom  and  justice,  made  unabashedly 
and  unswervingly  loyal,  they  and  their  peoples 
with  them,  not  by  the  force  of  British  arms,  but 
by  the  more  compelling  and  constraining  love  of 
British  freedom,  which  Britain's  generosity  en- 


TRANSFORMING  THE  EMPIRE         111 

kindled  in  the  hearts  of  the  French  in  Canada  and 
of  the  Dutch  in  South  Africa. 

And  when  the  day  of  testing  came,  the  fiery 
testing  of  war,  British  generosity  was  rewarded 
by  Dutch  fidelity,  as  it  had  been  rewarded  more 
than  a  hundred  years  before  in  the  war  of  1812 
by  the  fidelity  of  the  French-Canadian.  It  was 
the  confident  expectation  of  the  Kaiser  and  the 
war  lords  of  Germany,  that  when  they  made  war 
against  Britain,  Botha  and  all  the  Boers  in  South 
Africa  would  be  their  allies.  By  every  influence 
known  to  Prussian  diplomacy  of  intrigue  and 
deceit,  the  Boers  under  the  British  flag  were 
pressed  into  rebellion.  That  rebellion  was  short- 
lived. British  interests  in  South  Africa  were  then 
menaced  by  German  power  through  German 
Southwest  Africa.  Botha  took  the  field.  He 
marshalled  the  loyalist  forces  and  defended  the 
Union  by  attacking  the  enemy  on  their  own 
ground.  One  of  the  greatest  victories  in  all  Brit- 
ish history  was  the  result.  Germany's  oldest 
African  possession  surrendered,  and,  with  but 
little  bloodshed,  through  the  leadership  of  Gen- 
eral Botha  there  was  added  to  the  King's  Do- 
minion in  South  Africa  an  area  of  320,000  square 
miles,  in  extent  almost  equal  to  the  entire  home- 
land of  Germany  and  the  entire  homeland  of 
Britain  combined.  And  so  it  came  about  that 
on  July  14,  191 5,  in  the  same  House  of  Commons 


112      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

where  he  was  proclaimed  a  banished  outlaw,  at 
the  word  of  Prime  Minister  Asquith  and  with  the 
ringing  huzzas  of  every  member  of  every  political 
party  there  was  passed  this  remarkable  resolu- 
tion: 

"That  this  House  desires  to  place  on  record 
its  grateful  appreciation  of  the  distinguished  skill 
and  ability  with  which  General  the  Right  Hon. 
Louis  Botha  planned  and  conducted  the  recent 
military  operations  in  Southwest  Africa,  and  of 
the  eminent  services  rendered  by  him  and  by 
General  Smuts,  and  by  the  officers  and  the  forces 
of  the  Union  of  South  Africa  under  their  com- 
mand." 

The  story  of  that  romantic  episode  in  Britain's 
history  ought  to  be  told  in  every  part  of  Britain's 
world-dominions  forever.  It  needs  to  be  told  in 
plainest  terms  whenever  the  arid  Imperialism 
that  sought  the  banishment  of  men  like  Louis 
Botha  again  asserts  itself.  The  children's  chil- 
dren of  the  British  citizens  of  to-day  ought  to 
teach  its  deep  and  eternal  truths  to  their  children 
after  them,  lest  the  real  source  of  Britain's  en- 
during power  should  ever  be  forgotten,  or  the 
secret  of  her  survival,  when  the  proud  empires 
of  despotism  have  passed  away,  should  ever  be 
lost. 

And  this  is  the  life-process  that  transforms  the 
Empire.    Canada's  rise  to  nationhood  marked  the 


TRANSFORMING  THE  EMPIRE         113 

first  adventure.  Australia  and  New  Zealand 
made  the  bounds  of  national  freedom  wider  yet. 
To-day  South  Africa  plays  a  still  more  splendid 
part  in  the  great  world-drama.  And  the  end  is 
not  yet. 


AFTER  THE  WAR 

WAR  is  the  world's  great  crucible.  Into  it 
have  been  cast  all  the  organising  ideas  of 
civilisation  and  all  the  established  institutions  of 
international  politics.  The  world  will  never 
again  be  the  same  for  any  nation.  The  changes 
will  be  great  for  neutrals  as  for  belligerents. 
Within  the  national  boundaries  and  the  imperial 
circles  changes  will  be  as  radical  as  in  the  wider 
international  relations.  What  those  changes  will 
be,  how  far  they  will  reach  in  this  direction  or 
that,  and  what  may  be  the  war's  far-off  event,  no 
one  can  foretell.  The  changes  will  be  vital  rather 
than  mechanical.  In  the  end  a  vital  change  is 
radical.    It  goes  to  the  root. 

War  or  no  war,  a  change  was  coming  in  the 
political  relations,  both  national  and  interna- 
tional, of  that  marvellous  fact  in  history,  that  ap- 
parently accidental  but  really  purposeful  aggre- 
gation of  nations  and  colonies  and  dependencies, 
which  before  the  war  began  the  world  geogra- 
phies called  the  British  Empire.  For  it  a  change 
was  long  on  the  way.  But  the  fierceness  and 
the  ferment  of  the  crucible  of  war  are  producing 

114 


AFTER  THE  WAR  115 

in  a  year  what  in  the  slow-moving  evolutions  of 
peace  a  generation  or  perhaps  even  a  century 
might  not  have  yielded. 

For  one  thing,  not  only  will  the  self-governing 
British  Dominions,  Canada,  Australia,  New  Zea- 
land and  South  Africa,  accept  each  for  itself  the 
fact  of  full  national  status  and  cherish  feelings 
and  aspirations  appropriate  to  nationhood,  but 
also,  as  among  themselves  in  the  British  com- 
monwealth, and  by  the  other  nations  over  all  the 
world,  they  will  be  recognised  as  nations.  Al- 
ready they  each  present  the  national  requisites :  a 
national  territory,  a  national  government,  and 
a  national  spirit.  In  their  self-government  they 
do  the  things  nations  do:  they  exercise  national 
rights,  they  accept  national  obligations,  they  dis- 
charge national  duties.  They  are  nations,  not 
colonies;  nations,  not  dependencies. 

Years  ago,  while  he  was  Prime  Minister  of 
Canada,  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  declared  Canada's 
national  status  on  many  notable  occasions,  and 
in  terms  such  as  these: 

"Canada  is  a  nation.  We  feel  that  we  are 
a  nation.  Our  country  is  the  finest  under 
the  sun.  We  have  a  population  of  over 
seven  millions.  We  have  practical  control 
of  our  foreign  relations.  We  have  command 
of  our  own  forces.  We  bow  the  heart  and 
the  knee  to  the  King,  God  bless  him.    We 


116      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

are  his  loyal  subjects.  He  is  our  King,  but 
he  has  no  more  rights  over  us  than  are  al- 
lowed him  by  our  own  Canadian  Parliament. 
If  this  does  not  mean  nationhood,  what, 
then,  constitutes  a  nation?  And  if  there  is 
a  nation  under  the  sun  that  can  say  more 
than  this,  where  is  it  to  be  found?" 

The  Canadian  people  even  at  that  time  had  be- 
gun to  think  in  terms  of  nationhood  and  to 
breathe  the  spirit  of  a  nation's  life.  They  re- 
fused the  terms  "colony"  and  "colonial."  Some- 
times they  resented  them.  The  thing  represented 
by  such  terms  had  been  outgrown  and  left  be- 
hind. 

But  the  fact  of  nationhood  claimed  for  Canada 
by  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier,  in  accordance  with  the 
growing  sentiment  of  the  Canadian  people,  had 
been  recognised,  or  at  least  it  had  begun  to  be 
recognised,  by  leaders  and  exponents  of  political 
thought  in  Britain  long  before  the  events  of  the 
war  in  19 14  made  it  plain  to  all  the  world.  The 
following  quotations  from  British  political  lead- 
ers made  by  Mr.  John  S.  Ewart,  K.C.,  of  Ot- 
tawa, in  an  address  on  "Canadian  Sovereignty," 
delivered  before  various  Canadian  Clubs  in  19 13, 
are  not  only  pertinent  to  this  discussion  but  ex- 
tremely illuminating  and  significant.  He  quotes 
the  great  British  jurist,  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  as 
saying : 


AFTER  THE  WAR  117 

"Leave  the  conventions  alone  and  look  at 
the  facts,  and  we  find  that  the  'self-govern- 
ing colonies'  are,  in  fact,  separate  kingdoms 
having  the  same  King  as  the  parent  group. 
.  .  .  The  House  of  Commons  could  no  more 
venture  to  pass  a  bill  altering  the  Aus- 
tralian marriage  laws  or  the  Canadian  tariff 
than  the  Dominion  Parliament  could  legis- 
late on  London  tramways.  The  sovereignty 
is  a  figment.  .  .  .  Here,  then,  we  have  the 
first  of  our  Imperial  anomalies.  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  define  what  the  realm  is.  We  call 
it  an  Empire,  for  convenience;  but  the  im- 
perium,  the  power  of  sovereignty,  the  right 
residing  in  some  quarter  to  issue  a  command 
which  should  be  obeyed,  resides  nowhere." 

Almost  quoting  these  authoritative  words,  in 
affirming  the  same  ideas,  the  Standard  of  Empire, 
itself  established  in  order  to  help  all  British  peo- 
ples to  "think  Imperially,"  declared: 

"Leaving  theory  and  legal  figments  alone, 
an  overseas  State  of  the  British  Dominions 
is  an  autonomous  nation.  The  King  is  King 
of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britian 
and  Ireland,  and  of  the  Dominions  beyond 
the  sea.  That  is  to  say,  in  Australia  he  is 
King  of  Australia,  and  in  Canada  he  is  King 
of  Canada." 

Right  Hon.  Joseph  Chamberlain,  who  is  given 
credit  for  making  "Think  Imperially"  a  current 
phrase,  is  quoted  as  saying  in  1906: 


118      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

"The  time  has  gone  by  when  we  could 
treat  with  indifference  these  States  which 
have  voluntarily  accepted  one  Crown  and 
one  Flag,  when  we  could  speak  of  them  as 
though  they  were  subject  to  our  dictation. 
They  are  self-governing  nations.  They  are 
sister  States.  They  are  our  equals  in  every- 
thing except  population  and  wealth;  and 
very  quickly  you  will  find  that  they  will  equal 
and  surpass  us  in  these  respects." 

And  Mr.  Chamberlain's  successor  as  Secretary 
of  State  for  the  Colonies,  the  Right  Hon.  Alfred 
Lyttleton,  expressed  his  view  on  the  question  in 
this  language: 

"Action  should  be  organised  in  the  clear 
appreciation  of  the  fact  that,  as  between  the 
parent  country  and  the  Dominions,  there  is 
now  a  practical  equality  of  status.  Mr.  Bal- 
four in  the  House  of  Commons  was  under- 
stood to  say  that  his  Majesty's  Government 
were  well  advised,  in  the  changed  relations, 
to  recognise  the  legitimacy  of  the  Canadian 
claim,  and  cordially  expressed  his  pleasure 
at  the  growth  of  the  Dominions  to  the  stature 
of  nationality.  For  a  long  time  the  politi- 
cal relations  of  this  country  to  the  Domin- 
ions were  obscured  in  wise  silence,  but  the 
period  during  which  silence  could  be  main- 
tained has  now  ceased.  The  consciousness 
of  the  great  Dominions  has  rapidly  matured, 
and   the    recurring    Imperial    Conferences 


AFTER  THE  WAR  119 

have  of  necessity  brought  about  a  clearer 
definition  of  their  national  aspirations." 

Declarations  such  as  these  are  the  more  signifi- 
cant of  modern  British  opinion  because  they  are 
made,  not  by  the  exponents  of  political  radical- 
ism, but  by  statesmen  of  conservative  mind  and 
of  conservative  political  affiliations  and  tradi- 
tions. Mr.  Balfour  spoke  as  the  foremost  states- 
man in  the  Unionist  party,  and  as  chief  among 
the  leaders  of  conservative  political  thinking, 
when  he  affirmed  that  the  United  Kingdom  "is 
simply  first  among  equals,  so  far  as  the  great  self- 
governing  parts  of  the  Empire  are  concerned"; 
and  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  men  of  this 
new  day  "to  frame  the  British  Empire  upon  the 
co-operation  of  absolutely  independent  Parlia- 
ments." 

One  more  pronouncement  may  suffice.  It  is 
from  the  stoutest  Imperialist  of  them  all,  the 
scholarly-minded  Lord  Milner.  It  is  not  only 
very  pointed,  very  definite,  very  unmistakable 
in  its  language,  but  it  has  a  far  reach  and  a  wide 
application : 

"One  thing  is  certain.  It  is  only  on  these 
lines,  on  the  lines  of  the  greatest  develop- 
ment of  the  several  states  and  their  coales- 
cence, as  fully  developed  units,  into  a  greater 
union,  that  the  Empire  can  continue  to  exist 


130      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

at  all.  The  failure  of  the  past  attempts  at 
Imperial  organisation  is  due  to  our  imperfect 
grasp  of  the  idea  of  the  wider  patriotism. 
In  practice  we  are  slipping  back  to  the  anti- 
quated conception  of  the  mother  country  as 
the  centre  of  a  political  system,  with  the 
younger  states  revolving  round  it  as  satel- 
lites. Against  that  conception  the  growing 
pride  and  sense  of  independence  of  the 
younger  states  revolts." 

Nothing  could  be  more  explicit.  Nothing  could 
give  more  emphatic  denial  to  everything  funda- 
mental in  the  political  theory  and  practice  of  the 
Toryism  that  held  sway  in  the  blundering  and 
reactionary  times  of  Lord  North  and  George  III. 
It  sounds  more  like  the  progressive  Liberalism  of 
Campbell-Bannerman,  whose  dictum  was  that 
"freedom  and  independence  are  the  essence  of  the 
Imperial  connection,"  and  whose  active  apprecia- 
tion of  that  true  secret  of  what  made  the  British 
Empire  strong  and  keeps  it  one,  secured  self- 
government  for  Britons  and  Boers  in  South 
Africa,  and  that,  too,  in  the  very  teeth  of  Lord 
Milner's  own  determined  opposition.  And  one 
other  statement  by  Lord  Milner  is  deserving  of 
repetition  because  of  its  still  more  emphatic  re- 
jection of  the  term  "empire"  and  its  strangely 
self -contradictory  use  of  the  correlated  term 
"self-governing  colonies" : 


AFTER  THE  WAR  121 

"The  word  empire  has,  in  some  respects, 
an  unfortunate  effect.  It  no  doubt  fairly  de- 
scribes the  position  as  between  the  United 
Kingdom  and  subject  countries  such  as  India 
or  our  Central  African  possessions.  But  for 
the  relations  existing  between  the  United 
Kingdom  and  the  self-governing  colonies  it 
is  a  misnomer,  and,  with  the  idea  of  ascen- 
dency, of  domination,  inevitably  associated 
with  it,  a  very  unfortunate  misnomer." 

Were  it  not  that  Lord  Milner  is  an  Oxford 
man,  one  of  the  most  scholarly  among  living 
British  statesmen,  one  whose  thinking  and  whose 
speech  are  most  distinctly  marked  by  the  preci- 
sion of  what  is  called  "German  method,"  one 
would  not  boggle  over  his  frank  rejection  of 
"empire"  and  his  seeming  acceptance  of  "col- 
onies" in  the  same  paragraph. 

But,  all  petty  criticism  of  mere  phrases  aside, 
it  is  plain  that,  whatever  confusion  in  language 
may  survive,  the  fact  of  "colony"  as  applied  to 
Canada,  Australia,  New  Zealand  and  South 
Africa  has  passed,  and  that  the  idea  of  "im- 
perium,"  the  idea  of  ascendency  or  of  sover- 
eignty, and  even  of  "empire,"  as  regards  these 
sister  nations  in  the  British  family,  is  fast  pass- 
ing. That  is  to  say,  Canada  is  not  a  part  of 
the  British  "empire,"  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  free 
self-governing  nation  with  no  "empire"  sover- 


1*S      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

eignty  exercised  over  it  by  the  United  Kingdom, 
and  itself  exercising  no  "empire"  sovereignty 
over  any  other  subject  state  or  inferior  race. 

And  that  is  to  say  that,  although  King  George 
is  Emperor  of  India,  he  is  not  Emperor  of  Can- 
ada. He  is  King  of  Canada.  God  bless  him! 
And  his  Kingship  of  Canada,  of  Australia,  of 
New  Zealand,  and  of  South  Africa  is  not  a 
secondary  sequence  of  any  "empire"  relation- 
ship, but  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  au- 
thoritative proclamation  made  in  Westminster 
Abbey  on  June  22,  191 1.  Canada  is  one  of  the 
King's  Dominions.  He  is  its  King.  It  is  to  him 
a  King-dom.  And  in  that  kingdom  his  kingly 
rights  and  prerogatives  are  such,  and  only  such, 
as  the  people  and  Parliament  and  responsible 
Government  of  Canada  approve  and  allow. 

All  this  of  "freedom  and  independence"  was 
true,  at  least  in  theory,  and  was  asserted  before 
the  war  in  Europe  broke  out  in  August,  19 14. 
What  shall  be  after  the  war? 

For  one  thing:  whatever  new  conditions  may 
arise,  whatever  changes  impend,  it  must  not  be 
overlooked  or  forgotten  that  the  British  Empire 
was  not  made :  it  grew.  It  is  a  thing  not  of  logic, 
but  of  life.  It  is  the  result,  not  of  German  meth- 
od, but  of  British  experiment.  Nothing  the  war 
may  do  can  change  the  genius  of  the  British  peo- 
ples, or  force  a  living  organism  within  the  dog- 


AFTER  THE  WAR  128 

matic  terms  of  a  dead  formula.  The  empire- 
builder  with  a  measuring  rod  and  a  drill-sergeant 
rule  might,  indeed,  make  an  "empire"  with  its 
"imperium,"  its  "imperator"  and  its  shoddy  "im- 
perialism," but,  if  omnipotent  and  if  given  a 
chance,  he  would  wreck  the  British  Empire.  Be- 
cause it  is  British,  not  Roman  and  not  German, 
"freedom  and  independence  are  the  essence  of 
the  Imperial  connection,"  its  fundamental  doc- 
trine of  personal  liberty  is  the  glory  of  its  citizen- 
ship, and  its  social  democracy  is  the  corner-stone 
of  its  enduring  fabric  of  free  government.  Free- 
dom and  Independence!  Liberty  and  Democ- 
racy! These  remain.  All  else  may  change  and 
pass. 


NORTH  AMERICA'S   WORLD   IDEA 


IV 
THE  WORLD   IDEA 

INDEPENDENCE  was  the  great  idea  in  the 
North  America  of  Washington's  day;  Inter- 
dependence is  coming  to  be  the  greater  idea  in 
the  North  America  of  our  day.  Nationalism  was 
the  note  of  the  world  of  Yesterday;  Inter-nation- 
alism will  be  the  keynote  of  the  world  of  To- 
morrow. 

It  is  not  that  old  ideas  are  repudiated:  it  is 
rather  that  they  are  being  outgrown.  It  is  not 
that  national  life  is  decaying;  it  is  rather  that 
world  life  is  beginning  to  emerge.  When  the 
world  was  a  jungle,  each  tribe  counted  every 
other  tribe  its  enemy,  each  race  lived  at  the  ex- 
pense of  other  races,  each  nation  thought  to  come 
to  power  by  the  overthrow  of  other  nations :  but 
as  the  world  becomes  a  neighbourhood  the  fact 
of  mutual  dependence  overcomes  the  impulses  to 
tribal  war,  the  law  of  social  love  casts  out  the 
bondage  of  racial  fear,  and  the  ideal  of  interna- 
tional service  sets  a  new  standard  of  national 
greatness  in  the  neighbourhood  life  of  world  na- 
tions. Nationalism  is  not  rebuked,  rather  it  is 
justified,  and  comes  to  its  own  in  the  broader 
international  life.    The  best  seeds  of  national  life 

127 


128      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

come  to  flower  and  fruit  in  the  world  achieve- 
ments of  international  service. 

These  essential  principles  of  world  life  and 
world  progress  are  set  forth  and  illustrated  in  the 
history  of  the  two  great  English-speaking  groups 
of  nations,  the  British  Empire  and  the  Republic 
of  the  United  States  of  America.*  The  unmatched 
illustration  is  in  North  America.  The  great 
fraternity  of  the  English-speaking  world  has 
made  an  experiment  on  the  North  American  con- 
tinent which  is  at  once  the  marvel  and  the  in- 
spiration of  all  the  world.  This  international 
experiment  is  the  embodiment  of  North  Ameri- 
ca's World  Idea. 

North  America  is  more  than  a  continent  of 
Geography.    It  is  also  a  World  Idea. 

Four  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  with  the 
fall  of  Constantinople,  the  nations  of  western 
Europe  were  turned  back  upon  themselves.  Their 
whole  history,  for  more  than  two  thousand  years, 
had  been  bound  up  with  the  commerce,  the  ideas 
and  the  life  of  the  people  of  Asia  Minor  and  the 
great  nations  of  the  Far  East.  The  closing  of 
the  Dardanelles  five  hundred  years  ago  shut  off 
that  eastward  look  of  Europe.  The  fall  of  Con- 
stantinople and  .the  rise  of  the  Ottoman  Empire 
compelled  the  right-about-face  of  western  Euro- 
pean nations.  That  change  of  front  changed  the 
outlook  for  Italy,  for  Spain,  for  Portugal,  for 


THE  WORLD  IDEA  129 

France,  for  Britain.  The  nations  that  had  been 
in  the  rear  were  henceforth  to  stand  in  the 
world's  front  street.  To  break  new  pathways 
to  the  treasures  of  the  fabled  East  the  Portuguese 
went  round  the  Cape,  adventurers  from  Britain 
broke  into  the  misty  and  frozen  north,  and  far 
beyond  the  western  seas  Columbus  and  Cortez, 
the  Cabots  and  Cartier,  saw  a  new  continent 
heave  high  above  the  horizon  line. 

That  was  Europe's  first  vision  of  America. 
America  was  a  new  world.  To  the  old  world, 
broken  and  defeated  at  the  Dardanelles,  America 
meant  a  new  beginning.  For  the  restless  life  of 
the  Europe  of  the  fifteenth  century,  shut  in  by 
the  eastward  blockade  in  the  basin  of  the  .ZEgean 
and  eager  to  burst  its  bonds,  the  discovery  of 
America  meant  a  new  opportunity. 

To-day  America  looks  back  to  Europe.  After 
four  centuries  of  stagnation  along  the  one  hund- 
red and  fifty  miles  of  narrow  waters  that  sep- 
arate Europe  from  Asia,  conditions  again  meet 
for  another  stupendous  world  change.  It  would 
seem  as  though  thirty  centuries  were  blotted  out. 
The  world  is  back  again  in  the  romance  land 
of  the  Iliad.  The  shores  where  once  anchored 
the  long-oared  boats  of  the  Achseans,  and  that 
echoed  to  the  tread  of  the  hosts  of  Xerxes,  now 
answer  to  the  heaven-splitting  boom  of  artillery 
shells,  forged  some  of  them  in  Pittsburgh  and 


ISO      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

some  in  Toronto,  while  soldiers  of  the  Allies,  not 
from  Britain  and  France  and  Russia  alone,  but 
from  Australia  and  New  Zealand  under  the 
Southern  Cross,  press  on,  as  did  Ulysses  thirty- 
centuries  ago,  to  win  death  and  glory 

"Far  on  the  ringing  plains  of  windy 
Troy." 

In  these  uncommon  days  in  which  we  live,  con- 
ditions now  meet  on  that  battleground  of  world 
history,  that  under  our  very  eyes  will  issue  in 
epoch-making  events  of  world  significance.  The 
age-long  horror  of  the  Near  East  is  about  to  lift, 
like  a  night-pall  at  dawn.  Once  again  Constanti- 
nople is  doomed  to  fall,  and  when  it  falls,  no  mat- 
ter what  happens  in  Brussels  or  Berlin,  the  map 
of  the  world  must  be  re-drawn. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  Constantinople  fell, 
and  in  its  fall  the  West  was  split  off  from  the 
East,  as  though  never  again  the  twain  would 
meet.  In  the  twentieth  century,  when  Constan- 
tinople falls  again,  the  middle  wall  of  partition 
will  be  taken  away,  and  in  the  new  world  of  the 
new  day  there  shall  be  neither  East  nor  West. 
One  more  of  the  world's  autocracies,  the  blackest 
and  cruellest  of  them  all,  crumbles  into  ruin.  The 
democratic  life  of  the  western  world  will  break 
down  the  institutions  of  half -barbaric  Turkish 
despotism,  as  the  Dreadnoughts  of  Britain  and 


THE  WORLD  IDEA  181 

France  smash  their  way  through  the  forts  of  the 
Dardanelles.  History  is  about  to  take  a  fresh 
start.  Civilisation  is  shot  through  with  the 
birth-pangs  of  a  new  age.  A  new  world  throbs 
in  the  womb  of  time,  struggling  to  be  born.  Into 
that  new  world  of  new  beginnings  and  new  ideals 
and  new  resolves  North  America,  with  its  world 
idea,  must  make  its  way. 

And  America  to-day  means  more,  immeasur- 
ably more,  than  that  first  shadowy  vision  Europe 
caught  of  the  western  hemisphere.  America 
means  more  than  opportunity.  Into  the  new 
world  of  a  new  time  North  America  comes, 
meaning  not  opportunity  alone,  but  achievement 
as  well.  North  America  represents  an  achieve- 
ment, an  international  achievement  in  the  politics 
of  the  nations,  absolutely  without  precedent  in 
any  century,  without  parallel  on  any  continent. 

North  America  has  achieved  a  world  idea. 
Indeed  the  real  distinction  of  North  America  is 
not  so  much  in  great  things  done  as  in  great  ideas 
set  free.  Among  what  are  called  the  wonders  of 
the  world  other  nations  on  other  continents  may 
have  a  pre-eminence.  Things  done  elsewhere — 
mere  things,  eccentricities  of  nature,  triumphs 
of  invention,  applications  of  science,  achieve- 
ments in  art  and  architecture — things  done  else- 
where may  be  more  widely  advertised  and  may 
fill  larger  space  in  the  world's  records.    And  it 


132      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

may  be  the  things  about  which  Americans  them- 
selves make  their  loudest  boasts  are  but  replicas 
of  old-world  creations.  Other  races  and  other 
nations  laboured  through  the  ages,  and  America 
entered  into  their  labours.  But  in  one  thing  North 
America  blazed  a  new  trail,  staked  a  new  claim. 
In  one  achievement  North  America  stands  alone. 
In  the  greatest  achievement  of  the  United  States, 
in  the  greatest  achievement  of  Canada,  and  in 
the  joint  international  achievement  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada,  North  America  gives  voice 
and  accent  to  a  world  idea,  an  idea  which  will  yet 
reconstruct  Europe  and  touch  to  finer  issues  the 
civilisation  of  the  world. 

Recall  the  greatest  thing  done  by  the  United 
States.  It  was  not  a  railway  system  spanning  the 
continent.  It  was  not  a  canal  uniting  the  oceans. 
It  was  not  any  of  the  big  things  done  by  the 
Republic  in  the  great  day  of  its  pride  and  world 
power.  It  was  rather  the  achievement  of  the  day 
of  small  things.  It  was  the  idea  set  free  in  Colo- 
nial days,  at  Fayetteville  and  at  Mecklenburg,  in 
Massachusetts  and  in  Virginia,  the  idea  of  free- 
dom and  self-government  that  at  Philadelphia 
in  1776,  issued  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence and  in  the  setting  up  of  the  new  Republic. 
That  thing,  to  be  sure,  was  not  all  great.  It  had 
its  taint  of  selfish  ambition  posing  in  the  garb  of 
patriotism.    It  had  its  spirit  of  lawlessness  talk- 


THE  WORLD  IDEA  133 

ing  the  language  of  liberty.  But  the  distinctive 
thing  in  that  great  adventure,  the  supreme  thing 
of  all  American  effort,  the  thing  which  makes  the 
names  of  Washington  and  Jefferson  immortal, 
was  the  declaration  before  all  the  world  of  the 
inalienable  right  of  a  free  people  to  govern  them- 
selves, and  the  working  out  of  democratic  self- 
government  in  the  growing  history  of  the  nation. 
That  is  the  organising  idea  of  the  United  States 
and  its  greatest  contribution  to  the  democracy  of 
the  world. 

Over  against  that  thing  done  by  the  United 
States  set  the  thing  done  by  Canada,  the  unique 
achievement  embodied  in  Canada's  national  his- 
tory. Canada  represents  in  North  America  the 
first  successful  effort  of  any  colony  of  any  Em- 
pire in  the  world's  history  to  attain  national  self- 
government  without  revolution  and  without  the 
sacrifice  of  the  historic  background  of  the  nation. 
The  thing  done  by  the  American  colonies  through 
revolution  and  war  in  the  eighteenth  century 
might  easily  have  been  done  by  the  remaining 
colonies  of  British  North  America  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Canada  could  have  had  separa- 
tion from  Britain  without  striking  a  blow.  Inde- 
pendence would  have  been  hers  for  the  asking. 
But  between  1776  and  1867  the  political  think- 
ing of  the  English-speaking  world  was  broadened. 
The  idea  of  independence  in  North  America  took 


134      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

a  wider  sweep  and  a  higher  ranged  Canada  came 
to  nationhood,  not  by  the  old  way  of  independence 
and  separation,  but  by  the  new  way  of  inter- 
dependence and  the  larger  alliance.  With  its 
national  roots  struck  far  back  in  the  thousand 
years  of  Britain's  history,  Canada  stands  to-day 
in  the  world's  battle  array  of  free  Dominions — 
Canada,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  South  Africa, 
with  self-governing  Newfoundland  from  the 
North  Atlantic  and  mighty  India  holding  the 
mystery  of  the  Far  East — and  back  of  them  all 
that  mother  of  free  nations,  never  greater  than 
when,  with  her  loyal  children  from  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  and  all  of  them  free,  she  throws  her- 
self across  the  battle- front  in  Flanders,  for  the 
cause  of  the  little  people  whose  only  crime  was 
innocence.  And  that  marvel  of  the  world  alli- 
ance of  the  British  nations  is  the  vital  outcome  of 
what  was  done  in  North  America  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  when  the  colonies  of  Canada 
achieved  democratic  nationhood  without  aliena- 
tion from  the  motherland,  and  made  possible  the 
international  commonwealth  the  world  calls  the 
British  Empire. 

But  North  America's  world  idea  is  greater 
than  the  achievement  of  either  of  the  North 
American  nations  alone.  It  is  the  product  and 
the  expression  of  the  combined  and  unified  life 
of  the  United  States  and  Canada  through  their 


THE  WORLD  IDEA  185 

marvellous  century  of  international  history.  That 
world  idea  which  North  America  offers  to  all 
the  continents  is  a  boundary  line  between  these 
two  proud,  high-strung,  aggressive  nations,  four 
thousand  miles  from  ocean  to  ocean,  but  across 
which  in  more  than  a  hundred  years  neither  na- 
tion ever  once  launched  a  menacing  army  or  fired 
a  hostile  gun. 

Grasp  that  idea.  Measure  that  achievement. 
A  thousand  miles  up  the  mighty  St.  Lawrence! 
A  thousand  miles  along  the  Great  Lakes!  A 
thousand  miles  across  the  open  prairie !  A  thou- 
sand miles  over  the  world's  mightiest  mountain 
ranges !  Four  thousand  miles  where  nation  meets 
nation,  where  sovereignty  greets  sovereignty, 
where  flag  salutes  flag,  but  never  a  fortress, 
never  a  battle-ship,  never  a  gun,  never  a  sentry 
on  guard.  Four  thousand  miles  of  civilised  and 
Christianised  internationalism!  That  is  North 
America's  supreme  achievement.  That  is  North 
America's  world  idea. 


A  YEAR  OF  CONTRASTS 

THE  year  191 5  will  be  marked  in  history  by 
two  unique  and  meaningful  features :  One 
is  the  success  of  North  America's  international 
disarmament;  the  other  is  the  failure  of  Europe's 
armed  peace. 

The  failure  of  Europe!  Civilisation  stands 
stunned  and  aghast  at  the  utter  collapse  of 
European  internationalism.  The  world  presents 
no  spectacle  so  piteous  as  the  unspeakable  tragedy 
of  Belgium  and  the  age-long  tragedy  of  Poland, 
unless  it  be  the  even  more  unthinkable  tragedy 
of  Germany.  All  the  achievements  of  Europe,  all 
the  things  that  make  for  human  progress  and 
freedom  and  justice,  the  work  of  a  thousand 
years  and  the  hopes  of  a  thousand  more — all  have 
been  crowded  back  into  the  melting  pot  of  hideous 
and  brutal  war.  No  matter  who  is  responsible 
for  it,  the  lining  up  for  mutual  slaughter  of  mil- 
lions upon  millions  of  the  best  breeds  in  the  great- 
est nations  of  Europe,  the  wanton  destruction  of 
the  treasures  of  all  the  ages,  the  wholesale  squan- 
dering of  the  wealth  of  half  the  nations  of  the 
world  and  the  sowing  of  seeds  of  international 
hate  for  generations  yet  unborn — all  this,  for  the 

136 


A  YEAR  OF  CONTRASTS  137 

alleged  purpose  of  settling  some  inter-racial  feud 
or  some  international  dispute,  is  a  blank  denial  of 
civilisation,  a  crime  against  humanity,  an  apos- 
tasy from  Christ. 

Over  against  that  colossal  failure  of  Europe, 
as  if  to  speak  its  condemnation,  is  presented  at 
the  very  same  time  the  celebration  of  a  full  cen- 
tury of  unbroken  peace  between  the  greatest 
Empire  the  world  has  ever  seen  and  the  world's 
greatest  Republic.  This  is  indeed  the  sublimest 
wonder  of  all  the  world:  this  gigantic  human 
spectacle  of  more  than  400,000,000  of  peoples  of 
all  races  and  colours  and  languages,  covering 
nearly  one-quarter  of  the  land  area  of  the  globe, 
living  at  peace  under  one  flag;  under  another  flag 
100,000,000  of  as  enterprising  and  progressive 
peoples  as  civilisation  has  produced,  and  these 
two  flags  of  the  "Red,  White  and  Blue"  for  a 
hundred  years  entwined,  fold  in  fold  and  from 
sea  to  sea,  for  a  common  purpose  and  in  devotion 
to  a  common  ideal,  to  promote  the  freedom  and 
progress  and  peace  of  all  humanity — earth  sees 
nothing  more  marvellous  or  more  splendid  than 
that. 

And  in  these  days,  these  days  of  staggering 
and  bitterness,  when  the  war  cloud  of  Europe 
looms  blackest,  the  sad  eyes  of  Europe  may  turn 
again  to  America,  and,  in  the  afterglow  of  an 
unparalleled  century  of  Anglo-American  civilisa- 


138      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

tion,  the  heart  of  humanity  can  yet  praise  God 
and  take  courage  for  all  the  world. 

And  why  America's  achievement  ?  Why  North 
America's  alone  ?  Let  there  be  no  mistake.  This 
achievement  of  international  civilisation  in 
America  is  not  because  these  two  nations  are 
spent  and  wasted  forces,  degenerate  sons  of  cow- 
ard sires,  weak  to  defend  a  national  right,  slow 
to  resent  a  national  insult.  No  redder,  prouder, 
hotter  blood  ever  beat  in  British  veins  than  the 
Pilgrim  blood  of  New  England,  the  Cavalier 
blood  of  Virginia,  the  Celtic  blood  of  North  Caro- 
lina, or  the  blood  of  the  Ulster  Scot  in  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee.  That  same  blood,  red,  proud, 
hot,  throbs  through  Canadian  veins  all  the  way 
from  Cape  Breton  to  Vancouver. 

Not  blood  from  Britain  alone,  but  blood  from 
France,  blood  from  Germany,  blood  from  Aus- 
tria, blood  from  Italy,  blood  from  Russia.  All 
the  great  war  nations  of  Europe,  the  nations 
whose  veins  are  now  slit  on  the  battle-fronts  of 
the  world,  through  the  past  century  poured  that 
same  blood,  their  best  war  blood,  into  the  heart 
of  America.  If  blood  tells,  that  blood  should  tell 
in  us. 

And  that  blood  has  told.  The  men  of  North 
America,  in  the  United  States  and  Canada,  have 
never  belied  their  breed.  The  blood  of  the  lion, 
the  blood  of  the  eagle,  the  blood  of  the  bear,  the 


A  YEAR  OF  CONTRASTS  139 

fiery  bloods  of  all  the  beasts  of  Europe's  war 
jungle  have  mingled  in  the  veins  of  America. 
Sons  of  such  bloods,  the  men  of  America's  Eng- 
lish-speaking nations,  like  their  sires,  have  been 
little  used  to  lie  down  at  the  bidding  of  any  man. 
On  the  battlefields  of  the  Revolution  the  young 
American  Republic  justified  its  breed;  and  in  the 
deadlier  Civil  War,  with  more  prodigal  hand, 
South  and  North  alike  paid  the  full  measure  of 
devotion  to  causes  they  deemed  to  be  great.  Can- 
ada's half -century  of  national  history  has  as  yet 
no  war  page,  and  no  Canadian  battlefields  conse- 
crated by  the  blood  of  her  sons,  but  not  once  or 
twice  in  Britain's  blood-writ  story  soldiers  from 
Canada,  by  their  heroism  and  valour  in  the  Em- 
pire's wars,  proved  to  the  world  their  British 
heritage. 

And  Canada  proves  it  once  again.  Before  the 
mother  called  the  sons  made  answer.  From  the 
university  and  from  the  church  they  spoke ;  from 
the  factory  and  from  the  forest,  from  the  shop 
and  from  the  mine,  from  the  farm  and  from  the 
foothills,  veterans  who  fought  on  the  South  Afri- 
can veldt  and  recruits  in  the  bloom  of  youth. 
With  their  Saxon  blood  and  their  Celtic  blood, 
with  their  French  blood  and  their  Teuton  blood, 
they  came  and  are  coming,  and  into  a  war  that 
was  not  Canada's  war,  or  even  Britain's  war, 
soldiers  from  all  the  Provinces,  as  many  as  are 


140      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

called,  will  go,  an  army  at  a  time,  uncompelled 
and  free,  and  under  alien  skies  on  the  awful  altar 
of  the  world's  redemption  the  blood-sacrifice 
from  Canada  is  being  offered  up  for  the  war-sin 
of  the  nations. 

The  politics  of  the  nations  and  the  fortunes  of 
war  make  the  United  States  neutral  in  this  strug- 
gle and  Canada  belligerent,  but  were  the  places 
changed  Americans  would  do  what  Canadians 
are  doing.  They  are  two  nations,  but  their  breed 
is  one.  Their  flags  are  different,  but  their  im- 
pulses are  the  same.  Their  Governments  are  sep- 
arate, but  the  same  democratic  faith  and  the  same 
international  hope  and  the  same  world  purpose 
hold  sway  from  the  Arctic  to  the  Gulf.  And 
whatever  else  the  war  lords  of  Europe  may  say, 
it  cannot  be  said  that  North  America's  civilised 
internationalism  was  wrought  by  nations  of  the 
lesser  breeds  or  the  craven  heart. 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  North  America  has 
been  without  excuse  for  war.  If  excuse  there 
was  for  war  anywhere  in  the  past  hundred  years, 
its  duplicate  might  have  been  found  here.  If  any 
nation  accepts  responsibility  for  the  present  war 
in  Europe,  causes  as  important  and  reasons  as 
valid  might  have  been  presented  by  the  United 
States  or  by  Canada  for  more  than  one  war  since 
the  century  of  peace  began.  Again  and  again 
questions  arose,  situations  were  created,  tempers 


A  YEAR  OF  CONTRASTS  141 

were  aroused,  which  in  any  other  century  and  be- 
tween any  other  nations  would  have  involved  the 
excuse  of  national  honour  and  the  pretext  of  vital 
interest,  the  gauntlet  would  have  been  thrown 
down  and  war  would  have  been  on. 

Neither  can  the  war  lords  argue  that  the 
United  States  and  Canada  have  kept  the  peace 
because  of  the  power  of  each  to  withstand  attack 
from  the  other.  These  two  nations  divide  almost 
equally  the  continent  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
to  the  North  Pole;  but  in  numbers,  in  developed 
resources  and  in  war  equipment  there  is  no  equal- 
ity. On  the  one  side  are  one  hundred  millions  of 
people ;  on  the  other  side  are  eight  millions.  One 
has  for  long  maintained  a  seasoned  standing 
army;  the  other,  until  the  war  in  Europe  broke 
out,  had  only  a  volunteer  militia.  One  has  built 
up  a  navy  which  claimed  to  be  third,  if  not  second, 
on  the  high  seas ;  the  other,  even  with  open  coast- 
lines on  both  oceans,  has  not  so  much  as  a  naval 
program  accepted  by  Parliament.  To  all  the  de- 
clared defence  policies  of  the  war  nations  of  Eu- 
rope the  disarmed  internationalism  of  North 
America  offers  straight  contradiction,  and 
through  a  hundred  years  of  peace  these  two  civil- 
ised nations  have  given  the  pretensions  of  Eu- 
rope's war  lords  the  unflinching  and  triumphant 
lie. 

Why,  then,  this  achievement  of  North  America 


142      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

in  international  civilisation,  while  on  other  con- 
tinents the  nations  crouched  under  the  burdens  of 
their  wars  and  lingered  in  the  half  barbarism  of 
their  armed  peace  until  their  civilisations  col- 
lapsed into  war's  inevitable  hell?  Why  North 
America's  internationalism? 

For  one  thing,  the  United  States  and  Canada 
have  each  developed  into  a  national  unity  of  its 
own,  self-contained,  purposeful,  free.  The  Great 
Lakes  are  not  barbarized  by  the  black  menace  of 
forts  and  warships,  because  the  two  nations  they 
divide  desire  supremely  international  peace,  are 
fit  for  peace  between  themselves,  and  are  mak- 
ing ready  to  lead  the  world  along  the  interna- 
tional way  of  North  America's  great  experiment. 

Another  element  in  North  America's  interna- 
tionalism is  the  virile  democracy  of  these  two 
nations.  In  each  nation  the  people  are  free. 
They  govern  themselves.  Their  institutions  of 
law  and  order  are  not  imposed  from  without, 
but  are  developed  from  within.  Their  schools 
and  their  universities,  their  churches  and  their 
courts  of  justice,  the  taxes  borne  by  their  citizens, 
and  the  customs  duties  imposed  on  their  indus- 
tries and  their  trade — these  all  are  of  the  people's 
own  creation,  and  may  be  regulated  or  changed 
when  the  people  so  desire.  Each  nation  is  a 
democracy,  but  each  is  untrammelled  in  the  pur- 
suit of  its  own  democratic  ideal,  living  its  own 


A  YEAR  OF  CONTRASTS  143 

life,  loyal  to  its  own  history,  cherishing  its  own 
culture.  And  yet  each  is  conscious  of  contribut- 
ing a  worthy  and  a  necessary  quota  to  the  com- 
mon life  and  higher  civilisation  of  the  continent. 
Each  is  coming  to  regard  the  other,  not  as  a  com- 
petitor, but  as  a  partner,  not  as  an  enemy,  but  as 
an  ally,  and  what  is  noblest  in  the  nationalism  of 
each  finds  its  fruition  in  the  internationalism  of 
both. 

But  more  potent  than  international  self-inter- 
est, more  unifying  than  international  trade,  more 
hopeful  than  international  blood-affinities  is  the 
development  in  North  America  of  the  interna- 
tional mind.  Throughout  its  first  century  of  his- 
tory the  American  Republic  was  intensely  na- 
tional in  its  political  thought  and  feeling.  In 
large  measure  it  followed  Europe's  discredited 
example,  and  it  taught  its  children  to  regard  1776 
as  the  beginning  of  national  freedom  in  the  world, 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  as  the  first  char- 
ter of  civil  liberty,  and  George  Washington  not 
only  as  the  Father  of  his  own  Country,  but  as 
the  father  of  all  free  countries  everywhere.  Simi- 
larly in  Canada  there  have  been  those  who 
deemed  it  good  political  strategy  to  fan  antipa- 
thies toward  the  United  States,  as  American 
demagogues  had  inflamed  the  memories  of  the 
Revolution  into  national  sentiment  against  Bri- 
tain.   In  both  countries,  heritors  together  of  the 


144      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

Anglo-Saxon  impulse  and  of  the  Celtic  strain, 
there  was  exercised  whenever  the  occasion  arose 
the  licensed  frankness  of  blood  relations. 

But  deeper  than  all  these  shallow  frettings  on 
the  surface,  stronger  than  the  local  currents  of 
party  passions,  more  enduring  than  recollections 
of  wrongs  received  or  wrongs  inflicted,  there  is 
being  developed  and  made  controlling,  between 
the  United  States  and  Canada,  indeed  among  all 
the  democracies  of  the  English-speaking  nations 
the  world  over,  the  international  mind.  We  have 
all  been  taught  to  think  nationally. 

The  nations  of  the  British  Empire  have  been 
exhorted  to  "think  imperially."  But  our  think- 
ing must  take  a  wider  sweep.  Events  have 
proved  that  no  empire  can  live  to  itself  and  that 
no  nation  can  stand  alone.  Now  all  the  nations 
of  the  democratic  tradition  are  beginning  to  think 
internationally.  International  thinking  means 
international  good-will,  international  partner- 
ship, international  peace.  The  two  free  nations 
of  North  America,  with  their  civilised  interna- 
tional boundary  and  their  century  of  peace,  lead 
the  way.  As  nowhere  else  in  all  the  world  they 
can  face,  for  their  continent,  the  now  vexed 
problems  of  the  world  situation  with  the  equi- 
poise and  soberness  of  the  international  mind. 


THE  PARTNERSHIP  OF  NATIONS 

NORTH  AMERICA,  in  its  hundred  years  of 
international  peace,  illustrates  for  all  the 
continents  the  world  idea  of  the  partnership  of 
nations. 

The  partnership  of  nations!  That  is  a  great 
new  world-idea.  Yesterday  that  idea  would  have 
been  mocked  at  as  a  dream  of  the  prophets,  a 
vision  of  the  poets,  an  aspiration  of  the  pacifists. 
And  so  it  was.  To-morrow  it  will  be  accepted  as 
a  counsel  of  reason,  a  fundament  of  civilization, 
an  axiom  of  statesmanship.  So  utterly  have  the 
dogmas  of  the  war  lords  been  disproved :  so  disas- 
trously have  the  war-nations  paid  the  price  of 
their  unbelief:  so  irreparably  has  the  whole 
world  suffered  in  the  collapse  of  Europe's  armed 
peace  that  never  again  in  this  generation  will 
shining  armour  and  the  rattling  sabre  find  ad- 
vocates, except  in  the  mocking  cells  of  the  world's 
madhouse.  The  idea  of  armed  peace  is  doomed 
to  the  rubbish  heap  of  the  world's  barbarism. 
Another  idea  must  be  set  free,  a  world  idea,  the 
idea  not  of  international  strife,  but  of  interna- 
tional partnership. 

145 


146      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

That  idea  of  the  partnership  of  nations  the 
United  States  and  Canada  illustrate  for  the  world 
in  the  history  of  North  America.  For  Europe 
that  idea,  and  the  eager  hope  of  it,  was  given 
voice  in  the  early  months  of  the  war  by  the  Prime 
Minister  of  Britain,  when,  in  a  memorable  ad- 
dress in  Dublin,  he  adopted  and  expounded  Glad- 
stone's great  dictum  uttered  in  the  midst  of  the 
war-tumults  of  1870.  "The  greatest  triumph  of 
our  time,"  said  Gladstone,  "will  be  the  enthrone- 
ment of  the  idea  of  public  right  as  the  governing 
idea  of  European  politics." 

"The  idea  of  public  right — what  does  it  mean?" 
asks  Gladstone's  great  successor.  This  is  his 
answer — an  answer  which  cannot  be  too  often 
repeated  or  too  deeply  pondered,  not  by  the  com- 
batants alone,  but  by  all  who  care  for  the  progress 
of  the  world: 

"The  idea  of  public  right  means,  first  and 
foremost,  the  clearing  of  the  ground  by  the 
definite  repudiation  of  militarism  as  the 
governing  factor  in  the  relation  of  States 
and  in  the  future  moulding  of  the  European 
world. 

"It  means,  next,  that  room  must  be  found 
and  kept  for  the  independent  existence  and 
the  free  development  of  the  smaller  nation- 
alities, each  with  a  composite  consciousness 
of  its  own.  Belgium,  Holland,  Switzerland, 
the  Scandinavian  countries,  Greece  and  the 


THE  PARTNERSHIP  OF  NATIONS      147 

Balkan  States — they  must  be  recognised  as 
having  exactly  as  good  a  title  as  their  more 
powerful  neighbours — more  powerful  in 
strength  and  in  wealth — to  a  place  in  the 
sun. 

"And  it  means,  finally,  or  it  ought  to 
mean,  perhaps,  by  a  slow  and  gradual  pro- 
cess, the  substitution  for  force,  for  the  clash 
of  competing  ambitions,  for  groupings  and 
alliances  and  a  precarious  equipoise — the 
substitution  for  all  of  these  of  a  real  Euro- 
pean partnership  based  on  the  recognition 
of  equal  rights,  and  established  and  en- 
forced by  the  common  will." 

No  saner,  stronger,  more  statesmanlike  words 
have  been  uttered  in  any  country  or  at  any  time 
than  those  three  sentences  on  the  essentials  of 
European  peace  by  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  the 
Prime  Ministers  in  Britain's  history.  And  the 
words  which  immediately  followed  add  point  and 
emphasis  to  his  forecast  of  "a  real  European  part- 
nership" : 

"A  year  ago  that  would  have  sounded  like 
a  Utopian  idea.  It  is  probably  one  that  may 
not  or  will  not  be  realised  either  to-day  or 
to-morrow,  but  if  and  when  this  war  is  de- 
cided in  favour  of  the  allies  it  will  at  once 
come  within  the  range  and  before  long 
within  the  grasp  of  European  statesman- 
ship." 


148      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

What  Europe  will  come  to  by  a  waste  of  the 
wealth  of  all  her  nations,  through  a  year  of  the 
slaughter  of  millions  of  her  innocents,  and  after 
an  irrecoverable  impoverishment  of  the  breed  of 
all  her  great  races,  North  America  has  attained, 
through  the  Divinity  that  for  a  hundred  years  has 
shaped  the  farther  ends  of  the  two  nations  com- 
posing the  North  American  civilisation.  A  real 
partnership  of  the  nations! 

That  North  American  partnership  has  been 
evolving  almost  unawares,  gathering  strength  by 
every  courtesy  from  either  side,  becoming  more 
potent  by  every  co-operation  in  a  common  cause, 
until,  when  Europe's  frightful  catastrophe  broke, 
all  good  citizens  in  the  United  States  and  in  Can- 
ada awoke  to  the  deep  consciousness  that  their 
common-rooted  democracy  is  one  in  the  sources 
of  its  life,  one  in  the  institutions  of  its  freedom, 
one  in  the  power  and  in  the  motive  of  its  world- 
purpose.  While  Europe  was  whetting  the  teeth 
of  its  jungle,  North  America  was  making  vital 
the  bonds  of  its  neighbourhood.  Europe  stands 
to-day  one  group  of  nations  an  Ishmael  against 
the  other  group  of  nations ;  North  America,  even 
in  the  day  of  stress  and  the  night  of  storm,  stands 
four-square,  a  real  partnership  of  nations. 

Partnership !  That  is  the  word — a  real  part- 
nership of  the  nations!  The  British  nations 
among  themselves,  and  the  world  over,  have  ex- 


THE  PARTNERSHIP  OF  NATIONS      149 

pressed  that  idea,  and  in  days  to  come  will  express 
it  more  and  more  adequately  in  the  great  com- 
monwealth of  free  and  self-governing  peoples  liv- 
ing at  peace  under  one  flag,  the  nations  of  the 
Seven  Seas  that,  in  the  awful  days  of  war,  join 
hands  and  hearts  in  defence  of  the  democratic 
freedom  which  has  made  them  one.  Already  the 
British  Empire  has  cast  off  its  old  imperium  and 
has  become  a  commonwealth,  a  real  partnership 
of  nations. 

Partnership !  That  is  North  America's  word, 
too.  Here,  not  under  one  flag,  but  under  two, 
not  with  one  sovereign  Government,  but  with 
two,  and  almost  of  itself,  the  idea  of  international 
partnership  expresses  itself  with  growing  dis- 
tinctness and  emphasis.  In  spite  of  the  noisy  jin- 
goes on  both  sides,  the  United  States  and  Canada 
have  come  to  think  and  to  act  in  terms  of  North 
American  partnership.  When  we  rid  our  minds 
of  the  cant  phrases  of  a  false,  narrow  and  out- 
grown patriotism,  even  the  jingoes  will  waken 
up  in  the  morning  to  a  larger  life  of  partnership 
and  peace. 

Partnership !  That  is  the  word  of  the  coming 
Pan- Americanism.  Not  a  thing  of  force  and  com- 
pulsion, either  among  themselves  or  for  the  world, 
but  a  thing  of  freedom  for  each  and  of  co-opera- 
tion for  all,  the  real  Pan- Americanism  will  make 
a  place  in  the  sun  for  each  self-governing  repub- 


150      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

lie  of  the  western  hemisphere,  North  and  South 
alike,  and  with  them  will  stand,  with  equal  rights 
and  responsibilities,  the  half -continent  of  Canada, 
itself  a  partner  at  once  in  Pan- America  and  in 
Pan-Britannia. 

Partnership !  World  partnership !  That  is  the 
objective,  the  motive,  the  hope  that  never  fails. 
The  life  of  Britain,  as  Asquith  says,  must  be  lived 
in  the  real  European  partnership;  the  life  of  the 
United  States  and  of  Canada,  as  North  American 
partners,  belongs  in  the  democracy  of  the  whole 
American  hemisphere;  the  life  of  all  free  nation- 
alities the  world  over,  each  sovereign  in  its  own 
realm,  each  co-operant  with  all  the  others  for  the 
prosperity  of  each  and  for  the  freedom  of  all — 
that  is  North  America's  vision;  that  is  North 
America's  World  Idea. 


MESSAGES  TO  THE  PEOPLE 


AMERICA'S   MESSAGE  TO  THE 
NATIONS  * 

ONE  hundred  years  ago  to-day,  within  sight 
of  the  spot  where  we  now  stand,  and  at 
this  very  hour,  was  being  fought  the  battle  of 
Lake  Erie. 

In  the  light  of  modern  naval  warfare,  judged 
by  the  standard  of  the  super-dreadnought  and  the 
submarine,  of  the  airship  and  the  fourteen-inch 
gun,  that  battle  was  a  small  affair.  Nine  small 
sailing  vessels  on  one  side,  six  on  the  other,  not 
more  than  three  out  of  the  fifteen  being  of  any 
account  even  in  that  day,  and  not  a  thousand 
men  all  told,  of  whom  the  major  part  were  not 
seamen  at  all — such  were  the  forces  that  met  in 
the  battle  of  Lake  Erie.  One  gun  from  a  modern 
man-of-war  would  throw  more  metal  in  one 
charge  than  their  entire  broadsides,  and  would 
shatter  both  fleets  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

As  a  struggle  between  man  and  man,  and  as 
an  incident  in  the  war  of  which  it  formed  a  part, 
the  battle  of  Lake  Erie  has  its  own  interest,  and 
its  own  importance.     It  deserves  to  be  remem- 

*  Address  at  the  International    Celebration  of   One  Hundred 
Years  of  Peace,  Putin  Bay,  Ohio,  September,  1912. 

153 


154      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

bered.  In  the  heroism  displayed,  heroism  on  both 
sides,  heroism  in  the  seasoned  sailors,  heroism 
among  the  raw  men  from  the  shore,  it  is  worthy 
of  a  place  of  high  honour  in  these  centennial  cele- 
brations. Like  the  equally  decisive  battles  in 
which  the  Canadians  were  victorious,  the  battles 
of  Chrysler's  Farm  and  of  Chateauguay,  this 
battle  of  Lake  Erie,  which  gave  victory  to  the 
Americans,  had  in  it  incidents  of  valour  and  en- 
durance on  both  sides  of  which  neither  country 
needs  to  be  ashamed. 

In  the  light  of  the  hundred  years  through 
which  we  of  to-day  read  the  story  of  that  one 
battle,  and  of  that  whole  war,  the  lesson,  the 
supreme  and  abiding  lesson,  for  the  United  States 
and  for  Canada  is  this:  the  utter  futility  and 
inconsequence  of  war  as  a  means  for  the  just 
settlement  of  disputes  between  these  two  nations. 
That  lesson  we  both  have  learned.  That  war  was 
our  last  war.  It  will  remain  our  last.  Never 
again  will  the  armed  troops  of  the  United  States 
and  Canada  meet  except  in  friendly  review,  or, 
if  the  day  ever  comes,  to  stand  side  by  side  and 
shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  Armageddon  of  the 
nations.  Witness  these  great  lakes  for  nigh  a 
hundred  years  swept  clean  of  every  battleship, 
and  this  transcontinental  boundary  line  for  four 
thousand  miles  undefended  save  by  the  civilised 
instincts  and  the  intelligent  good-will  of  both  na- 


AMERICA'S  MESSAGE  TO  THE  NATIONS    155 

tions.  And  having  learned  that  great  lesson, 
having  proved  its  worth  through  a  hundred  years, 
the  United  States  and  Canada,  these  two  English- 
speaking  peoples  of  America,  have  earned  the 
right  to  stand  up  and  teach  the  nations.  Inter- 
national peace  and  good-will  is  America's  mes- 
sage to  all  the  world. 

WHAT  I,AY  BEHIND  l8l2 

Go  back  to  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie.  Read  the 
impartial  story  of  that  war.  Mark  how  futile 
it  was,  how  inconsequent,  even  how  inglorious. 
See  how  it  left  unsettled  the  points  alleged  to 
be  in  dispute  between  Britain  and  the  United 
States — rights  of  neutrals  in  war,  the  right  of 
search,  the  unfixed  boundary — points  which  were 
settled  after  the  war  was  over  by  agreement  and 
treaty,  and  not  by  brute  force. 

What  lay  behind  the  War  of  1812?  That  war 
was  declared  by  the  United  States  against  Britain. 
Its  primal  cause,  however,  was  not  American  at 
all,  but  European.  The  United  States  was  in- 
volved in  European  quarrels  only  indirectly,  and 
Canada  not  at  all.  The  vital  issue  lay  rather  in 
the  struggle,  in  the  age-long  European  struggle, 
of  free  nationhood  against  the  barbaric  notion  of 
world-empire.  Great  Britain  stood  for  the  rights 
of  free  nationhood.    The  dream  of  world-empire 


156      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

found  its  tragic  expression  in  the  vaulting  ambi- 
tion and  matchless  brain  of  the  great  Napoleon. 

In  that  struggle  Britain  stood  alone.  Italy, 
Holland,  Austria,  Prussia,  Spain,  one  after  an- 
other all  bowed  low  to  Bonaparte's  masterful  will 
on  bloody  fields  of  war.  Even  Russia,  apart  and 
impregnable  among  her  snows,  came  to  terms. 
All  the  nations  of  Europe  yielded  up  their 
strength  for  the  service  of  Napoleon,  and,  obedi- 
ent to  his  decree,  at  Berlin  and  Milan  they  re- 
fused commercial  relations  with  the  one  nation 
which  defied  the  Colossus  that  bestrode  the  world. 
Had  he  won,  had  his  despot's  dream  come  true, 
then  the  glory  of  free  nationhood,  not  for  Europe 
alone,  but  for  Britain  and  perhaps  for  the  world, 
had  passed,  and,  it  may  be,  had  passed  forever. 

That  struggle  meant  life  or  death  for  Britain. 
Had  Napoleon  succeeded  in  throwing  all  of  Brit- 
ain's foreign  trade  into  neutral  hands  it  could 
mean  only  death.  In  that  struggle,  as  the  states- 
men of  Britain  then  saw  it,  there  was  no  room 
for  neutral  trading  nations.  Neutral  rights,  as 
manipulated  by  Napoleon,  meant  the  immediate 
destruction  of  Britain's  commercial  independ- 
ence. In  the  end  it  meant,  not  the  prosperity  of 
the  neutrals,  but  Napoleon's  domination  of  the 
world. 

The  War  of  1812  was  declared  by  the  United 
States  for  the  purpose  of  asserting  her  trading 


AMERICA'S  MESSAGE  TO  THE  NATIONS   157 

rights  as  a  neutral  in  the  war  that  involved  Eu- 
rope. When  the  European  situation  was  solved 
by  the  overthrow  of  Napoleon  and  his  banishment 
to  Elba,  the  alleged  causes  of  the  war  between 
Britain  and  the  United  States  became  purely  aca- 
demic, and  in  the  treaty  of  peace,  signed  in  1814, 
those  points  in  dispute  were  not  even  mentioned. 
Indeed  it  was  not  until  1856,  in  the  Declaration 
of  Paris,  that  the  rights,  the  just  rights,  of  neu- 
trals were  established  among  the  nations.  This 
last  war  between  the  two  great  English-speaking 
world-powers  was  proved,  proved  in  itself,  proved 
by  the  history  of  its  issues,  to  be  fruitless  for 
good  to  either  nation,  unless  it  be  taken  as  con- 
vincing evidence  of  war's  incurable  futility. 

UNDESIGNED  REACTIONS  OF  WAR 

Not  only  is  war  ineffectual  as  a  means  for  the 
just  settlement  of  disputes  between  civilised  na- 
tions, but,  by  the  very  irony  of  fate,  most  wars 
have  reactions  quite  the  opposite  of  their  original 
intention.  The  undesigned  reactions  of  war  are 
the  surprises  of  history. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  and  after,  the  Dukes 
of  Austria  tried,  by  sheer  brute  power,  to  tighten 
their  feudal  grasp  on  the  free  peasantry  of  the 
Alpine  valleys.  The  result  of  their  wars  was 
Austria's  humiliation  and  shame.     Out  of  the 


158      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

struggle  for  liberty  was  born  a  new  Switzerland, 
united,  free,  invincible. 

The  Battle  of  Bannockburn,  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  tells  the  same  story.  England's  feudal 
King  sought  to  lord  it  as  Sovereign  over  what 
had  hitherto  been  the  wild  and  divided  North.  In 
that  war  Scotland  was  united.  Proud  Edward's 
power  was  broken.  Out  of  "oppression's  woes 
and  pains"  comes  a  new  and  sturdy  nation  with 
its  deathless  slogan,  "Scots  wha  hae." 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  aggressive  war 
party  in  Britain,  against  the  better  judgment  and 
the  finer  instincts  of  the  nation,  and  in  the  teeth 
of  the  eloquent  protests  of  Pitt  and  Burke,  in  the 
blindness  of  the  mere  bureaucrat  determined,  by 
the  sword  if  needs  be,  to  coerce  to  their  own 
policy  the  free-born  colonies  in  America.  Their 
folly  went  wide  of  the  mark.  They  failed,  as 
they  were  bound  to  fail.  Instead  of  a  larger 
domain  and  more  efficient  power,  Britain  lost  her 
first  empire.  Out  of  the  storm  and  stress,  the 
American  Colonies,  North  and  South,  just  be- 
cause they  were  sons  of  the  British  breed,  arose, 
a  welded  nation,  holding  on  high  their  Declara- 
tion of  Independence. 

Similarly  in  1812  the  dominant  war-party  in 
this  new-born  Republic,  blind  to  the  real  genius 
of  the  nation,  deaf  to  the  warnings  of  its  highest 
instincts,  and  in  defiance  of  the  recorded  protests 


AMERICA'S  MESSAGE  TO  THE  NATIONS    159 

of  some  of  the  greatest  of  its  States,  cherished  the 
hope  of  shifting  its  northern  boundary  from  the 
Great  Lakes  to  the  Arctic  and  making  the  Repub- 
lic co-terminous  with  the  continent.  They  also 
failed.  The  fates  were  against  them,  too.  The 
Canadian  pioneers,  they,  too,  were  men  of  British 
blood.  The  undesigned  reaction  of  the  war  of 
1812  is  the  Canada  of  to-day. 

Let  there  be  no  mistake.  The  readings  of  his- 
tory are  plain.  In  the  pangs  of  1812  the  soul  of 
Canadian  nationality  began  to  be  born.  That 
war  was  indeed  Canada's  national  war.  In  it  the 
United  States  was  divided,  Britain  was  reluctant, 
but  Canada  was  in  grim  and  deadly  earnest.  All 
Canadians — the  French-Canadians  in  the  valley 
of  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  colonists  from  Britain, 
and  the  Loyalists  from  New  England  and  the 
South — all  these  for  the  first  time  made  com- 
mon cause.  To  the  French-Canadian,  who  cared 
nothing  about  the  cry,  "Free  trade  and  sailors' 
rights,"  the  American  appeared  as  an  invader, 
the  despoiler  of  his  home,  the  enemy  of  his  people, 
and  under  de  Salaberry  at  the  battle  of  Chateau- 
guay  the  French-Canadian  militiamen,  fighting 
under  the  British  flag,  defeated  the  most  exten- 
sive strategic  movement  of  the  whole  war.  From 
the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  St.  Clair,  the  Canadian 
pioneers  were  in  large  part  the  Loyalists  of  1776. 
For  them  the  War  of  181 2  meant  a  fight  for  their 


160      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

new  homes  against  their  oldtime  enemies.  The 
impact  of  that  war  drove  into  one  camp  French- 
speaking  and  English-speaking,  and  out  of  that 
community  of  sympathies  and  interests  emerged 
in  due  time  Canadian  nationality. 

That  war  did  more.  It  not  only  welded  to- 
gether French-speaking  and  English-speaking, 
but  it  bound  all  Canada  with  ties  stronger  than 
steel  to  the  motherland  of  Britain.  Within  one 
generation  Canadians,  having  defended  their 
country  side  by  side  with  British  regulars  against 
invasion  from  without,  demanded  from  Britain 
self-government  within:  and  they  won  not  only 
representative  institutions,  such  as  the  United 
States  inherited,  but  Britain's  latest  achieve- 
ment, responsible  government  as  well.  When  the 
scattered  Provinces  of  Canada  gathered  them- 
selves together  under  one  responsible  Canadian 
Government  there  appeared  an  absolutely  new 
thing  in  the  political  achievements  of  the  world; 
a  new  nation  that  had  not  severed  its  historic  ties 
or  sacrificed  its  historic  background.  That  new 
nation,  loyal  to  the  old  flag,  awakened  in  Brit- 
ain a  new  conception  of  Empire,  and  led  the  way 
for  Newfoundland  and  Australia  and  New  Zea- 
land and  South  Africa  into  that  civilised  "im- 
perium"  which  is  indeed  not  an  "imperium"  but 
a  commonwealth,  the  British  Empire  of  to-day. 


AMERICA'S  MESSAGE  TO  THE  NATIONS    161 
A  HUNDRED  YEARS  AFTER 

Come  back  now  to  the  War  of  1812.  Come 
back  to  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie.  Call  up  the  men 
whose  blood  reddened  these  waters  and  whose 
valour  gave  that  struggle  all  it  has  of  glory.  Let 
them  all  look  up  and  see  what  we  now  behold. 
Let  the  Canadians  of  that  day  arise,  the  men  in 
whose  hearts  the  fires  of  hate  and  fear  burned 
hot.  Let  them  look  southward  across  the  lake, 
far  as  the  Gulf  and  wide  as  from  sea  to  sea.  Let 
them  multiply  the  eight  million  Americans  of 
that  day  into  the  hundred  millions  of  to-day,  and 
count  every  man  a  friend.  Let  them  see  this 
great  nation,  greatest  among  the  world's  Repub- 
lics, with  power  to  achieve  what  it  has  greatly 
planned, — let  them  see  it  standing  four-square 
among  the  nations,  pledged,  irretrievably  pledged, 
to  the  world's  freedom,  good-will  and  peace. 
What  a  glad  surprise  for  the  Canadians  of  a  hun- 
dred years  ago ! 

Let  the  Americans  rise,  too.  Let  them  come, 
officers  and  men,  from  Ohio,  from  Rhode  Island, 
from  Kentucky,  who  in  the  hour  of  victory,  for 
them  the  hour  of  death,  saw  in  eager  vision  their 
Republic  stretch  far  as  the  northern  sea.  Let 
them  look  up  and  behold  the  boundary  line  where 
it  was  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  north  of  it  a 
new  nation,  filling  half  a  continent  with  people 


162      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

of  proud  resolve,  self-dependent,  resolute,  free. 
Let  them  understand  how  that  through  this  cen- 
tury of  peace  there  have  arisen  in  America  two 
English-speaking  nations,  both  sovereign,  self- 
respecting,  unafraid,  and  each  with  the  other 
forming  that  marvellous  unity  of  North  Ameri- 
can civilisation,  and  standing  for  its  integrity, 
prestige  and  power.  What  a  surprise,  what  a 
glad  surprise,  to  the  Americans  of  a  hundred 
years  ago! 

Greatest  surprise  of  all  to  those  men  from 
Britain,  from  Canada  and  from  the  United 
States,  who  here  greatly  fought  and  bravely  died, 
would  it  be  were  they  to  see  that  fights  like  theirs 
are  now  not  only  deemed  impolitic,  but  are  abso- 
lutely impossible  between  these  nations.  That 
impossibility  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  policy,  but 
is  a  fundamental  principle.  That  principle  is 
the  rights  of  nationhood.  All  responsible  states- 
men in  Britain,  in  the  United  States  and  in 
Canada  agree  in  this,  that,  not  for  themselves 
alone,  but  for  all  peoples,  the  rights  of  nationality 
are  sacred  and  inviolate.  Any  and  every  people 
that  desires  to  be  free,  and  is  fit  to  be  free,  ought 
to  be  free,  and  must  be  free. 


AMERICA'S  MESSAGE  TO  THE  NATIONS    163 

CANNING    AND    MONROE 

Britain  learned  that  principle,  the  principle  of 
the  rights  of  nationality,  out  of  the  war  of 
American  independence.  The  United  States  and 
Canada  learned  it  in  the  struggle  of  1812.  In 
loyalty  to  that  principle  Britain  withstood  the 
despotic  aggressions  of  Napoleon,  and  after  him 
the  not  less  despotic  schemes  of  the  concerted 
monarchs  of  Europe  against  the  rising  democra- 
cies of  the  world.  When  the  Concert  of  Europe 
planned  war  against  the  new  Spanish  democracy, 
Canning,  the  Foreign  Secretary  of  Britain,  as- 
serted that  principle  in  these  words :  "Our  busi- 
ness is  to  preserve  the  peace  of  the  world,  and 
therefore  the  independence  of  the  several  nations 
that  compose  it;"  and,  again,  in  these  words: 
"Every  nation  for  itself  and  God  for  us  all." 
When  those  plans  of  the  autocratic  monarchs  of 
Europe  threatened  the  Spanish  colonies  in  Ameri- 
ca Canning  proposed  to  American  Ambassador, 
Rush  that  Britain  and  the  United  States  issue  a 
joint  declaration  that  "while  neither  power  de- 
sired the  colonies  of  Spain  for  herself,  it  was  im- 
possible to  look  with  indifference  on  European 
intervention  in  their  affairs."  Immediately  after 
that  proposal,  President  Monroe,  giving  voice 
to  the  instinct  and  true  policy  of  the  United 
States,  used  these  historic  words  to  Congress: 


164.      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

"With  the  existing  colonies  or  dependencies  of 
any  European  power  we  have  not  interfered,  and 
shall  not  interfere.  But  with  the  Governments 
who  have  declared  their  independence  and  main- 
tained it  ...  we  could  not  view  any  interposi- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  oppressing  them,  or  con- 
trolling in  any  other  manner  their  destiny,  by 
any  European  power  in  any  other  light  than  as 
a  manifestation  of  an  unfriendly  disposition 
toward  the  United  States." 

That  sovereign  principle  has  been  the  guiding 
star  to  the  nations  of  Britain  and  America  over 
many  a  troubled  sea.  It  has  changed  for  Britain 
the  old  centralised  notion  of  empire  into  the  new 
idea  of  a  world  commonwealth  of  free  nations,  in 
which  loyalty  is  not  of  compulsion,  but  of  love, 
and  the  ties,  stronger  than  selfish  bonds,  are  im- 
perceptible and  light  as  air.  That  principle  has 
ranged  the  public  opinion  of  Britain  on  the  side 
of  the  struggling  democracies  of  the  world — of 
Greece,  of  Italy,  of  Belgium,  of  Hungary,  and 
even  of  the  nations  of  the  Orient.  It  civilised 
the  boundary  line  between  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  and  inspires  life  in  North  America  with 
a  new  ideal  of  internationalism.  It  determines 
the  policy  of  the  United  States  in  its  relations 
with  the  Philippines,  with  Cuba,  with  Mexico  and 
the  Republics  of  South  America,  with  Japan  of 


AMERICA'S  MESSAGE  TO  THE  NATIONS    165 

a  generation  ago  and  with  the  awakening  democ- 
racy of  China  to-day. 


NOT    YESTERDAY,    BUT    TO-MORROW 

All  this  growth  of  nationhood,  this  sanctity  of 
national  aspiration,  the  commonplace  among  us 
to-day,  had  its  beginning  when  through  the  smoke 
of  battle  Britain  and  America  began  to  see  eye 
to  eye.  The  distance  that  vision  has  brought 
these  two  nations,  the  revolution  it  has  wrought, 
may  be  measured  by  the  difference  between  what 
happened  on  Lake  Erie  in  1813  and  what  hap- 
pened in  1898  on  Manila  Bay.  The  significance 
of  the  change  is  expressed  in  to-day's  celebration. 
At  this  place  and  on  this  day,  under  the  guidance 
of  His  Honour  the  Governor  of  Ohio,  and  with 
Hon.  William  H.  Taft,  the  ex-President  of  the 
United  States,  and  myself,  joint  spokesmen  for 
the  nations  that  here  contended  a  hundred  years 
ago,  our  deepest  concern  is  not  with  the  wars  of 
the  past,  but  with  the  peace  of  the  future;  not 
with  the  triumphs  or  the  defeats  of  yesterday,  but 
with  the  responsibilities  and  obligations  of  to- 
morrow; not  with  the  glory  that  either  nation 
achieved  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  with  the  mes- 
sage which  both  nations,  speaking  in  the  name  of 
our  common  North  American  civilisation,  shall 


166      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

give  to  the  world  through  the  hundred  years  to 
come. 

Our  message  here  to-day,  spoken  by  two  voices, 
one  from  the  United  States,  the  other  from  Can- 
ada, is  one  message.  It  is  America's  message 
that  on  this  continent,  between  two  proud  peo- 
ples, the  barbarism  of  brute  force  has  long  yield- 
ed to  civilised  internationalism.  It  is  the  assur- 
ance that  Canada's  national  standing  on  this  con- 
tinent binds  the  British  Empire  and  the  American 
Republic  in  one  world-spanning  English-speak- 
ing fraternity.  On  all  continents  and  on  all  seas 
the  power  of  America  is  the  combined  power  of 
the  United  States  and  Canada,  plus  the  power  of 
Britain  and  of  the  British  dominions  on  the  South 
Atlantic  and  beyond  the  Pacific.  These  all  are 
bound  together,  each  with  all  the  others,  for  the 
maintenance  of  that  principle  of  nationhood :  any 
people  that  desires  to  be  free  and  is  fit  to  be  free 
ought  to  be  free  and  must  be  free.  That  principle 
means  peace  and  freedom  in  the  English-speak- 
ing world. 

More  than  that.  What  this  principle  of  nation- 
hood has  done  for  America  and  for  the  English- 
speaking  fraternity  it  yet  will  do  for  the  world. 
In  the  light  of  North  America's  experience  the 
international  boundary  lines  of  Europe  are  bar- 
baric. They  cannot  long  endure.  In  our  own 
day  war  has  begun  to  be  seen  not  merely  as  cruel, 


AMERICA'S  MESSAGE  TO  THE  NATIONS    167 

burdensome,  brutal,  but  as  too  futile  and  too  fool- 
ish for  sane  and  civilised  peoples.  The  nations 
of  civilisation  will  yet  leave  war  behind,  as  civi- 
lised men  have  left  behind  the  street  fight  and 
the  duel.  As  individual  citizens  have  found  the 
only  sure  vindication  of  personal  honour,  and  the 
only  true  protection  of  vital  interests,  to  be  in 
respecting  the  personality  and  the  personal  inter- 
ests of  others  and  in  trusting  for  justice  to  the 
law  of  their  land,  so  are  the  nations  learning,  and 
so  the  nations  must  learn,  that  the  only  sure  vin- 
dication of  national  honour  and  the  only  certain 
protection  of  vital  interests  is  in  respecting  the 
nationality  of  others,  and  in  trusting  for  justice 
to  the  growing  conscience  of  the  race  codified  in 
international  law  and  expressing  itself  through 
international  arbitration. 

On  that,  as  on  a  sure  foundation,  rests  the 
hope  of  the  world's  peace.  Once  men  dreamed  of 
peace  through  the  world  sovereignty  of  some 
master  mind  like  Alexander  or  some  ruling  race 
like  the  Romans.  But  that  dream  of  peace,  the 
peace  not  of  freemen  but  of  weaklings  and  slaves, 
was  doomed  forever  when  Napoleon  and  his  army 
staggered  back  through  the  snows  of  Russia  un- 
der the  curse  of  God. 

But  a  new  day  has  dawned,  dawned  for  the 
statesmen,  dawned  for  the  nations.  It  is  the  day 
of  national  rights  and  national  responsibilities. 


168      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

The  two  nations  of  America  have  seen  the  com- 
ing of  that  day,  have  seen  it  through  these  gen- 
erations of  peace,  have  seen  it  and  are  glad.  We 
of  to-day,  standing  on  this  historic  boundary  line, 
a  boundary  no  longer  of  separation,  but  of  union, 
are  pledged,  we  and  our  nations  with  us,  pledged 
to  preach  this  gospel  of  freedom,  good-will  and 
peace.  This  is  America's  vision;  this  America's 
message;  this  America's  obligation  to  all  the 
world. 


INTERNATIONALISM   AND   THE 
UNIVERSITY  * 

A  UNIVERSITY  is  a  place  where  a  world  of 
men  and  women  come  together  as  a  corpo- 
rate body  to  teach  and  to  learn  a  world  of  sub- 
jects. 

A  modern  university,  like  the  "studium  gen- 
erale"  of  the  Middle  Ages,  knows  no  limitation 
of  race  or  of  language  or  of  country.  Its  inter- 
ests are  world  interests.  Its  range  sweeps  not 
one  world  alone,  but  all  worlds.  As  a  university 
its  citizenship  is  universal.  Its  local  habitation 
may  be  in  one  State  or  in  one  nation,  but  its  spirit 
is  international  and  its  home  is  in  all  the  earth. 
All  the  great  American  universities,  whether 
maintained  by  the  State  or  established  on  private 
foundations,  draw  their  life  from  every  great 
world  nation  and  send  back  their  quickening  pow- 
er into  all  lands.  In  the  United  States  and  in 
Canada  alike,  many  of  the  universities  represent, 
in  their  Faculties  and  among  their  students,  the 
bloods  and  the  languages  and  the  traditions  of  all 
the  warring  nations  of  Europe.  When  their  uni- 
versity day  is  done  those  graduates,  who  afore- 

*  Commencement  Address,  Syracuse  University,  1915. 

169 


170      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

time  were  aliens  and  enemies,  turn  again,  as 
streams  from  a  fountain  head,  to  vitalise  and 
fructify  the  world. 

The  university  is  indeed,  in  its  ideas  and  in 
its  spirit,  a  microcosm,  a  little  universe.  You 
came  to  this  university  place  boasting  your  citi- 
zenship in  one  State  or  in  one  Nation :  if  the  uni- 
versity has  done  for  you  anything  worth  while 
you  have  been  led  into  the  world  of  universal 
ideas:  to  you  has  come  the  vision  of  world  life. 
The  badge  of  the  university  means  that  while 
you  may  hold  the  rights  of  national  citizenship  in 
your  native  land,  your  intellectual  citizenship,  the 
enfranchisement  of  your  spirit,  shall  be  in  every 
nation,  every  fatherland  to  you  a  native  country 
and  every  foreign  country  to  you  a  fatherland. 

It  is  from  the  watchtower  of  the  university, 
and  with  the  intellectual  insight  and  the  moral 
sympathy  of  the  university  mind,  we  of  to-day 
and  in  the  universities  of  North  America,  must 
survey  the  world  situation.  And  what  a  sight! 
A  world  wrecked  on  the  reefs  of  barbarism: 
order  turned  again  into  chaos :  civilisation  belied, 
its  faith  disproved,  its  hope  shattered,  its  charity 
mocked  in  the  chant  of  hate. 

Since  last  Commencement  day  a  year  ago  the 
civilisation  of  the  centuries  has  collapsed.  The 
internationalism  of  Europe  has  reverted  to  tribal- 
ism at  its  worst.    The  Armed  Peace  of  the  world 


INTERNATIONALISM  AND  UNIVERSITY    171 

has  broken  into  world  war.  Not  an  ocean  but  has 
been  tracked  by  war-craft.  Not  a  nation  but  has 
been  turned  from  domestic  politics  to  foreign 
policy.  Not  a  university  in  all  the  world  that 
keeps  to-day  the  serenity  of  an  undivided  and 
neutral  mind.  With  every  international  boun- 
dary line  on  all  the  continents  trembling  as  in  an 
earthquake  shock,  it  seems  like  cruel  trifling  to 
talk  of  Internationalism  and  the  University. 

No,  not  all  the  continents.  Not  every  interna- 
tional line.  The  invisible  boundary  between  the 
two  English-speaking  nations  of  North  America, 
the  longest  dividing  line  on  the  map  of  all  the 
world,  has  not  been  threatened.  That  ancient 
landmark  has  not  been  moved.  It  alone  stands 
firm,  guarded  only  by  the  people's  will.  Its  rec- 
ord of  a  hundred  years  points  the  world  to  a 
thousand  years  of  peace.  The  civilised  interna- 
tionalism of  the  United  States  and  Canada  bears 
witness  to  the  Anglo-American  unity  and  is  the 
Darien  peak  of  the  university  mind. 

America's  nationalism 

The  unique  internationalism  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada  can  be  understoqd,  and  the 
secret  of  it  discovered,  only  by  a  study  of  na- 
tionality and  nationalism  in  the  life  and  history 
of  these  two  North  American  nations.    Interna- 


172      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

tionalism  depends  on  the  quality  of  your  nation- 
alism :  and  nationalism  is  determined  by  the  ele- 
ments and  factors  in  what  you  call  your  nation- 
alities. Nationality.  Nationalism.  Internation- 
alism. These  three  terms  as  applied  to  North 
American  life,  have  a  far  richer  meaning  than 
eleswhere  in  all  the  world,  because  the  facts  they 
represent  have  been  enriched  by  contributions 
from  the  treasures  of  life  in  all  the  great  nations 
of  the  world. 

In  the  United  States  the  nation  is  that  con- 
crete unity  of  all  the  elements  of  race  and  lan- 
guage and  national  antecedent  blended  together 
under  a  common  government,  inspired  by  a  com- 
mon sentiment,  and  directed  towards  a  common 
purpose.  The  American  nationality  is  not  so 
much  a  thing  of  birth  or  of  blood,  as  it  is  the  legal 
standing  enjoyed  by  those  whose  allegiance  is  to 
American  institutions  and  whose  symbol  is  the 
American  flag.  American  nationalism  is  that 
conscious  sense  of  oneness  with  all  whose  adher- 
ence is  to  the  American  nation  and  whose  strong- 
est national  sentiments  gather  about  the  symbol 
of  America's  national  life. 

What  I  mean  is  illustrated  in  the  experiences 
of  peoples  of  different  races  who  came  to  America 
from  nations  in  Europe  and  whose  descendants 
are  now  citizens  of  the  United  States  or  of  Can- 
ada.   For  instance,  in  North  Carolina,  and  other 


INTERNATIONALISM  AND  UNIVERSITY    173 

States  both  in  the  South  and  in  the  North,  are 
many  thousands  of  citizens  whose  forefathers 
came  from  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  bringing 
with  them  characteristics  of  their  nationality 
as  pronounced  as  any  pioneers  who  ever  crossed 
the  Atlantic.  Their  clan  names  carried  the  his- 
tory of  the  Scottish  nation.  In  their  blood  and 
temperament  was  everything  distinctive  of  the 
Celtic  race.  They  spoke  only  the  Gaelic  lan- 
guage. For  their  religious  faith  and  for  their 
political  principles  they  were  ready  to  fight  and 
if  needs  be  to  die.  In  the  struggles  of  the  Revo- 
lution they  were  divided  in  their  allegiance,  some 
following  George  Washington  and  the  Stars  and 
Stripes,  others  abiding  with  the  old  flag  and  join- 
ing their  compatriots  in  Canada.  On  the  one  side 
they  helped  to  make  strong  the  foundations  of 
the  new  Republic:  on  the  other  side  they  gave 
strength  and  steadiness  to  the  new  Dominion. 
To-day  the  descendants  of  those  Scottish  Gaels, 
alike  in  the  United  States  and  in  Canada,  prize 
their  strain  of  Celtic  blood  and  cherish  with 
growing  fervour  their  inheritance  from  the  Scot- 
tish nationality,  but  they  speak  the  English  lan- 
guage, and,  with  a  devotion  as  passionate  as  that 
of  their  sires  to  Scotland's  King  and  law,  they 
pledge  their  troth  to  their  nation's  flag  and  are 
as  ready  to  defend  their  country's  honour.  In  the 
United  States  they  are  not  Scottish- Americans : 


174      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

they  are  Americans.  In  Canada  they  are  not 
Scottish-Canadians :  they  are  Canadians.  In  both 
nations  they  reverence  the  traditions  of  their 
fathers,  and  count  their  historic  background  in 
the  Scottish  nationality  an  honourable  birthright, 
but  in  their  own  lives  they  blend  with  the  ele- 
ments contributed  by  other  races,  by  the  English, 
by  the  Irish,  by  the  various  races  of  Europe,  to 
form  that  new-world  composite:  in  the  United 
States  the  American  nationality  and  the  Ameri- 
can nation,  and  in  Canada  the  Canadian  nation- 
ality and  the  Canadian  nation. 

And  what  is  true  of  that  one  race  in  America 
is  true  also  for  all  others  who  have  earned  the 
right  to  freedom  and  fellowship  in  North  Ameri- 
can citizenship. 

NATIONALISM  AND  INTERNATIONALISM 

It  is  the  fact  of  this  new  democratic  nationality 
in  these  two  nations  that  explains  the  fact  and 
the  power  of  America's  internationalism.  The 
United  States  and  Canada  each  has  its  own 
forms  and  institutions  of  government,  but  in  both 
the  authority  of  government  is  the  people's  will. 
An  autocrat  may  endure  for  a  night,  but  democ- 
racy returns  in  the  morning.  Some  privileged 
class  or  favoured  interest  may  prove  to  a  demon- 
stration its  ability  to  legislate  and  administer  for 


INTERNATIONALISM  AND  UNIVERSITY    175 

the  people  better  than  the  people  would  for 
themselves,  but  Woodrow  Wilson  put  the  invinci- 
ble democracy  of  his  own  country  and  of  Canada 
into  a  nutshell  when  he  declared:  "I  care  not 
how  benevolent  a  master  is  going  to  be;  I  will 
not  live  under  a  master.  It  was  not  for  that 
America  was  made." 

It  is  this  inborn  and  incurable  passion  for  lib- 
erty, refusing  alike  mastership  for  oneself  and 
servitude  for  another,  that  gives  distinction  to 
nationalism  in  these  two  nations,  and  makes  the 
internationalism  of  North  America  the  inspira- 
tion for  all  the  continents.  Were  there  on  this 
continent  a  despot's  throne,  and  were  the  power 
of  the  State  a  thing  apart  from  the  will  of  the 
people,  some  tyrant's  vaulting  ambition  might 
some  day  stretch  from  Panama  to  the  Pole,  and 
North  America  repeat  the  sorrows  and  the  slav- 
eries of  Europe.  But  it  shall  not  be:  it  cannot 
be.  All  over  this  continent  the  fires  have  been 
kindled  that  shall  never  go  out:  the  flags  are 
afloat  that  shall  never  be  furled :  the  fires  of  truth 
and  the  flags  of  liberty. 

But  in  Canada  nationalism  and  international- 
ism have  a  deeper  meaning  and  a  still  wider  sig- 
nificance. The  people  of  Canada  are  sovereign 
in  their  own  domain,  mistress  in  their  own  house, 
but  they  share  also  in  the  sovereignty  of  that 
world  democracy  of  British  nations  miscalled 


176      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

the  Empire.  The  old  names  survive,  the  old  forms 
endure,  but  the  spirit  is  new  and  the  life  is  free. 
There  is  no  Imperium.  There  is  no  Imperator. 
Soldiers  from  Canada  in  Flanders  and  in  France 
sing  to-day  "God  Save  the  King,"  but  they  sing 
and  they  serve  of  their  own  free  choice  and  by 
commission  of  their  own  national  government, 
the  servant,  not  the  master,  of  the  democracy  of 
Canada. 

The  political  fact  of  Canada's  nationalism 
within  the  circle  of  the  British  Empire  and  the 
geographical  fact  of  Canada's  internationalism 
on  the  North  American  continent,  give  to  the 
Canadian  Dominion  a  place  of  serious  importance 
and  of  high  strategy  among  the  nations.  It  is  at 
once  the  half-way  house  of  the  world-empire  of 
Britain  and  the  vital  bond  of  the  Anglo-American 
unity.  Think  what  that  fact  means:  what  it 
means  for  America :  and  in  Europe's  lurid  light, 
what  it  may  yet  mean  for  all  the  world. 

TWO  NATIONS :  ONE  PEOPLE 

Years  ago,  in  the  City  of  Toronto,  that  great 
historian  and  literary  man,  whose  name  gives 
lustre  to  this  whole  continent,  the  late  Dr. 
Goldwin  Smith,  was  in  the  habit  of  saying  that 
the  time  had  come  for  wiping  out  the  interna- 
tional dividing  line  between  the  United  States 


INTERNATIONALISM  AND  UNIVERSITY    177 

and  Canada.  Other  men,  sometimes  on  one  side, 
sometimes  on  the  other,  have  said  that  a  freer 
trade  policy  would  work  for  political  union  on 
this  continent.  They  who  so  speak  think  only 
for  the  moment  and  see  only  on  the  surface. 
Tariff  or  no  tariff,  reciprocity  or  no  reciprocity, 
free  trade  or  no  free  trade,  the  United  States  and 
Canada  are  two  national  units,  and  in  their  flags 
and  forms  of  government,  two  they  shall  remain. 
But  our  English-speaking  nations  are  one  people : 
one  in  the  thousand  years  of  their  historic  back- 
ground, one  in  their  ancient  passion  for  liberty, 
one  in  the  genius  of  their  laws,  one  in  the  wealth 
of  their  literature,  one  in  the  foundations  of  their 
faith,  one  in  the  eternal  purpose  of  the  God  of 
nations.  What  God  has  joined  together  let  not 
the  petty  policies  of  men  put  asunder. 

Does  some  one  ask,  Why  not  unite  these  two 
nations  and  two  Governments  in  one  Parliament 
or  Congress  of  the  Continent?  This  is  my  an- 
swer :  There  are  wider  horizons  and  *  more 
splendid  visions  than  the  political  unity  of  North 
America.  In  the  defence  of  North  American 
civilisation  and  in  the  mission  of  North  America 
to  the  world,  these  two  nations  are  more  impres- 
sive and  more  impregnable  under  two  flags  than 
they  would  be  under  one. 

This  is,  indeed,  quite  the  most  impressive  thing 
on  the  map  of  the  world :  this  international  bound- 


178      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

ary  between  the  United  States  and  Canada, 
which,  across  this  continent  and  for  four  thou- 
sand miles,  unites  these  two  peoples  more  truly 
than  it  divides.  It  is  not  at  all  an  imaginary 
line.  It  is  the  most  real  and  most  divisive  politi- 
cal fact  on  this  continent.  The  flags  are  two. 
The  sovereignties  are  two.  The  administrations 
are  two.  But  the  people  are  not  so  divided.  They 
cross  and  re-cross.  Their  interests,  their  ideals, 
their  purposes,  and  the  vitalities  of  their  lives  are 
all  interwoven.  From  the  Rio  Grande  to  Hud- 
son's Bay,  from  Cape  Breton  to  California,  there 
is  being  created  one  vast  international  community. 
In  fronting  the  supreme  moral  problems  of  lib- 
erty and  justice  and  peace,  and  in  facing  North 
America's  supreme  obligation  to  the  world,  the 
United  States  and  Canada  are  united  together,  by 
every  league  of  their  common  boundary,  in  one 
indissoluble  bundle  of  their  international  life,  the 
pledge  and  the  foretaste  of  that  civilised  interna- 
tionalism in  which  North  America  is  yet  to  lead 
the  world. 

TH£    ANGLO-AMERICAN    UNITY 

This  internationalism  of  North  America  even 
now  is  something  more  than  North  American 
alone.  It  involves  the  spiritual  unity  of  all  the 
nations  and  peoples  of  the  English  speech.    This 


INTERNATIONALISM  AND  UNIVERSITY    179 

is  indeed  the  international  distinction  and  the 
high  purpose  of  Canada  on  this  continent:  the 
unity  in  spirit  and  purpose  of  this  American  Re- 
public in  the  freedom  of  its  own  democracy  with 
the  democratic  nations  that  make  up  the  world- 
empire  of  Britain.  It  is  the  high  ambition  of 
Canadians,  as  being  themselves  at  once  citizens 
of  North  America  and  citizens  of  the  British  Em- 
pire, to  hold  both  together  in  one  invincible  unity 
of  the  international  mind,  not  for  any  proud 
Anglo-Saxon  domination,  not  for  any  world  do- 
minion of  form  or  force,  but  for  the  larger  lib- 
erty of  all  peoples  and  for  the  larger  unity  of 
all  nations  in  the  peaceful  democracy  of  the 
world. 

There  are  still  those,  under  both  flags,  who 
regret  and  deplore  the  division  which  separated 
the  American  colonies  from  the  parent  stock  of 
Britain.  They  dream  of  what  might  now  be  if 
Britain  and  America  were  one.  They  think  not 
of  conquest;  for  neither  nation  desires  the  force- 
ful possession  of  the  territory  of  any  other.  Nor 
even  of  defence :  though  for  the  moment  the  hori- 
zons are  heavy  with  grief  and  sometimes  black 
with  fear.  They  think  rather  of  the  Anglo- 
American  idea,  and  of  how  it  might  be  pushed 
over  all  the  earth. 

But  that  dream  of  political  unity  passed  more 
than  a  century  ago.    It  will  not  come  back.    It 


180      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

need  not  come  back.  Another  vision  gilds  the 
horizon  of  this  new  century.  It  is  the  vision  of 
national  integrities  within  a  free  international 
unity.  Beyond  the  storm-cloud  of  Europe  Pre- 
mier Asquith  sees  emerge  "a  real  European  part- 
nership" in  which  a  place  shall  be  kept  for  all  the 
little  kingdoms,  room  for  each  of  the  unified  na- 
tionalities, where  there  shall  be  equal  rights  for 
all,  and  a  common  security  enforced  by  the  com- 
mon will. 

In  the  English-speaking  world  there  has  al- 
ready come  to  pass  what  in  Europe's  wild  dis- 
traction is  scarcely  even  fitfully  dreamed.  It  is 
a  real  Anglo-American  unity.  It  is  the  nation- 
alism of  all  the  nations  of  the  Empire,  and  the 
nationalism  of  all  the  sovereign  States  of  the  Re- 
public, coming  together  almost  unconsciously  in 
a  spiritual  affinity.  It  is  not  an  uncertain  balanc- 
ing of  the  powers  that  make  for  war.  It  is  not  an 
alliance  based  on  brute  force.  There  is  in  it  a 
touch  of  life:  a  oneness  of  ideals:  a  sympathy  of 
the  things  of  the  mind. 

This  is  the  new  world  vision  of  the  English- 
speaking  peoples.  Canada  cherishes  it.  The 
American  Republic  is  not  disobedient  to  it.  In 
Britain  the  wearied  watchers  on  the  hilltops  greet 
it  as  those  who  long  have  watched  for  the  morn- 
ing. Under  the  Southern  Cross  the  young  na- 
tions of  Australia  and  New  Zealand  rise  up  in 


INTERNATIONALISM  AND  UNIVERSITY    181 

eager  salute.  South  Africa,  too,  latest  born  of 
the  British  breed,  and  justified  in  her  democracy 
by  the  heroism  of  her  children,  sees  in  it  the  ful- 
filment of  a  great  hope.  And  out  of  the  Far  East, 
the  mighty  Empire  of  India,  ancient  before  the 
Anglo-Saxon  was  born,  looms  mysterious  and 
majestic  as  if  to  find  a  standing  place.  It  is  the 
world-dream  of  internationalism.  And  the  two 
nations  of  North  America  rise  up  to  make  that 
dream  come  true. 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY 

In  this  world-wide  movement  of  international- 
ism what  is  the  function  of  the  university  ?  If  the 
maxim  holds,  which  was  asserted  at  the  begin- 
ning, that  a  university  is  a  place  where  a  world 
of  men  and  women  come  together  as  a  corporate 
body  to  teach  and  to  learn  a  world  of  subjects, 
then  it  follows,  by  intellectual  necessity,  that  the 
university  stands  in  the  very  forefront  of  inter- 
nationalism. The  university  is  the  home  of  the 
world  mind.  Education  breeds  the  world  idea: 
breeds  it,  nurtures  it,  widens  its  horizon,  liberates 
it  into  the  free  atmosphere  of  world  ideas.  Schol- 
arship is  debtor  to  every  nation,  to  every  race  and 
to  every  age.  Science  is  the  cumulative  resultant 
of  the  world's  experiment  and  achievement.  Lit- 
erature is  the  expression  of  world  ideas.     The 


182      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

university  itself  is  indeed  the  watchtower  of  the 
international  mind. 

If  a  university  is  indeed  a  world  of  ideas,  the 
university  point  of  view  must  take  a  world  sweep. 
University  ideas  must  smash  the  crusted  bigotries 
of  local  prejudice,  of  national  arrogance,  and  of 
racial  pride.  The  idea  of  the  solidarity  of  the 
race  and  of  its  unity  in  biological  fundamentals; 
the  idea  of  the  interdependence  of  all  peoples  in 
their  economic,  financial  and  political  interests, 
as  illustrated  in  the  history  of  civilisation;  the 
idea  of  one  world-neighbourhood  into  which  are 
being  incessantly  crowded  all  races  and  nations; 
the  emergence  of  a  common  law  for  that  world 
neighbourhood  as  imperative  as  any  law  known  in 
municipal  or  national  life;  the  idea  of  inexorable 
sanctions  of  that  world  law  which  make  viola- 
tions, even  a  seemingly  local  violation,  like  the 
feud  between  Austria  and  Servia,  an  offence  of 
world  consequence,  entailing  catastrophe  for  all 
the  world — those  world  ideas,  which  are  the  coin 
current  in  any  university  and  in  any  circle  of 
educated  people,  make  it  forever  impossible  for 
a  poised  university  mind  to  take  any  but  a  world 
point  of  view. 

The  university  is  the  chief  guardian  of  the  soul 
of  the  nation.  The  man  in  the  street  may  suppose 
that  mere  things  constitute  the  nation :  extent  of 
territory,  resources  of  material  wealth,  a  large 


INTERNATIONALISM  AND  UNIVERSITY    183 

population,  with  all  the  signs  of  outward  pros- 
perity and  physical  greatness.  But  the  man  in 
the  university  knows  that  not  by  these  things 
can  the  soul  of  the  nation  live. 

The  university  man  has  read  history  to  no 
good  purpose  if  he  has  not  learned  that  the  great 
nations  have  rarely  been  the  big  nations,  the  na- 
tions of  vast  territory,  of  exhaustless  wealth  or 
of  resistless  power.  From  the  days  of  little  Judea 
to  the  days  of  little  Belgium  the  little  peoples  have 
been  the  Suffering  Servant  of  Jehovah.  The  lit- 
tle nations  have  saved  the  ideals  of  civilisa- 
tion. 

"You've  lost  everything,"  mocked  the  Accuser. 
"No,  not  everything,"  came  back  the  answer. 
"Not  everything.    Not  my  Soul." 

And  the  Soul  of  Belgium,  saved  so  as  by  fire, 
shall  yet  by  its  example  redeem,  not  Europe  alone, 
but  crucified  humanity,  from  the  decay  of  honour 
and  justice  and  truth.  It  is  not  by  the  sword  of 
war  alone,  it  is  for  us  much  more  by  the  lust  of 
the  full  dinner-pail  and  the  big  dividend,  that  the 
soul  of  the  nation  is  threatened.  "Jeshurun 
waxed  fat  and  he  kicked."  The  universities  of 
to-day  and  of  to-morrow,  in  the  United  States 
and  in  Canada,  must  rise  to  the  high  and  stern 
discipline  of  the  mind  and  heart  and  spirit  if  our 
young  nations  are  not  to  lose  the  passion  for 
righteousness,  the  love  of  truth  and  the  consecra- 


184)      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

tion  to  service  which  alone  can  save  a  nation's 
soul. 

Fronting  the  unimaginable  tragedy  of  Europe's 
civilisation,  the  collapse  and  condemnation  of  its 
university  culture,  there  is  not  in  all  America  to- 
day, or  there  ought  not  to  be,  one  university  that 
has  not  been  filled  with  fear  for  itself  lest  it,  too, 
betray  its  nation's  soul.  The  question  raised  to- 
day goes  far  back  of  the  academic  contentions  of 
literary  criticism,  or  the  disputes  of  the  philo- 
sophic cults,  or  the  experiments  of  the  scientific 
laboratory.  It  is  back  to  the  fundaments,  not  of 
Christianity  alone,  but  of  morality  as  well.  Is 
there  a  difference  between  right  and  wrong?  Is 
there  an  immovable  obligation  to  do  the  right  and 
to  shun  the  wrong?  Is  this  a  moral  world  in 
which  the  Nature  of  Things  is  on  the  side  of  the 
right,  and  inexorable  retribution  tracks  the  heels 
of  wrong?  Do  the  moral  distinctions,  the  moral 
obligations  and  the  moral  retributions  obtain  for 
the  State  as  absolutely  and  as  inevitably  as  for 
the  individual?  Is  Law  a  reality  for  the  strong 
or  only  a  makeshift  for  the  weak,  and  is  Force 
the  ultimate  arbiter  of  justice?  Is  greatness  for 
the  citizen  or  for  the  nation  the  embodiment  of 
the  Roman's  Will-to-Power  or  of  the  Nazarene's 
Will-to-Serve?  Who  is  to  be  chosen,  Barabbas 
or  Jesus?  Who  is  to  be  crowned,  the  Caesar  or 
the  Christ? 


INTERNATIONALISM  AND  UNIVERSITY    185 

These  are  the  pro  founder  questions  which  the 
university  must  face,  and  face  with  the  resolute- 
ness of  a  moral  crisis,  if  it  would  save  either  its 
own  sense  of  ethical  distinctions  or  the  imperilled 
soul  of  the  nation.  The  denial  of  the  fundamen- 
tal affirmations  of  morality  as  they  affect  the 
State,  through  teachers  like  Treitschke  and  his 
percursors  and  imitators  in  the  great  universities 
and  schools  of  Germany,  perverted  the  German 
mind  through  two  generations,  until  the  nation's 
inherited  sense  of  moral  values  was  at  length 
completely  destroyed,  its  moral  perspective  re- 
versed, and  all  the  ideals  and  chivalries  and  gen- 
erosities of  its  civilisation  crumbled  back  into  the 
hell  of  its  hate. 

And  the  moral  world  is  one.  The  law  of  moral 
degeneration  is  no  respecter  of  nations.  The  per- 
version of  the  university  mind  perverts  not  Ger- 
man thinking  alone,  and  not  the  Teuton  race  only, 
but  the  British  and  the  American  as  well.  And 
the  law  of  the  harvest  holds :  wheat  yields  wheat 
and  tares  tares.  And  the  increase  is  thirty,  or 
sixty  or  an  hundred  fold.  What  the  universities 
teach  to-day  the  schools  will  teach  to-morrow,  and 
on  the  third  day  the  harvest  of  the  nation  must 
be  reaped:  wheat  from  wheat  and  tares  from 
tares. 

And  the  harvest  of  one  nation's  sowing  will 
be  reaped  not  by  that  nation  alone.    The  winds 


185      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

from  all  the  seas  carry  the  seed  of  national  truth 
and  of  national  error  to  the  ends  of  all  the  earth. 
No  student  can  think  only  for  himself.  No  uni- 
versity can  go  right  or  can  go  wrong  alone.  An 
idea,  vitalising  a  personality,  and  caught  up  on 
the  winged  winds  of  the  university  mind,  defies 
your  State  limitations  or  your  nation's  bounds: 
its  home  is  the  boundless  air  of  the  world  life. 
Think,  men  and  women  of  the  university,  only 
think,  think  with  your  souls  aflame;  speak,  only 
speak,  speak  as  with  tongues  of  fire;  and  the 
world  is  yours,  every  man's  fatherland  to  you  a 
native  country,  and  every  man's  native  country  to 
you  a  fatherland.  Think,  speak,  serve,  and  do  all 
by  the  dynamic  of  the  international  mind,  and 
your  life  and  your  university  will  count  for  the 
common  weal,  and  bring  nearer  the  day  of  the 
World's  Commonwealth. 


LEADERSHIP  AND   THE  WORLD 
CRISIS  * 

LEADERSHIP  and  the  World  Crisis!  The 
theme  is  yours — yours  and  your  commit- 
tee's. It  suggests  concern  on  your  part  and  on  the 
part  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United 
States — this  great  Church  that  in  wealth  and 
numbers  leads  all  the  Reformed  Churches  in 
Christendom — concern  for  Christianity  itself, 
and  for  civilisation,  and  for  the  opportunities  and 
obligations  of  this  American  Republic  in  this 
hour  of  crisis  in  the  world's  history. 

You  have  invited  to  speak  on  this  significant 
theme  at  this  critical  hour  a  Canadian,  the  editor 
of  a  Canadian  daily  newspaper,  whose  first  con- 
cern is  for  the  public  opinion  and  public  life  of 
Canada  at  a  time  when  the  Canadian' people  are 
involved,  with  all  their  wealth  and  all  their  serv- 
ice and  all  their  sons,  in  the  most  stupendous  and 
most  staggering  conflict  of  civilisation  in  all  the 
centuries,  waged  on  the  battle- fronts  of  all  the 
world. 

This  invitation  in  itself  suggests  the  truth  too 

*An  Address  at  the  Presbyterian  General  Assembly,  Roches- 
ter, N.  Y.,  1915. 

187 


188      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

often  ignored,  that  in  the  real  life  of  North 
American  democracy  the  pulpit  and  the  press 
have  much  in  common;  that  each  is  a  throne  of 
power,  and  may  become  an  instrument  of  peril  in 
the  life  of  the  people;  that  each  has  a  share  in  the 
trade  and  commerce  of  world  ideas,  and  that 
in  the  day  when  American  democracy  comes  to 
judgment  the  pulpit  and  the  press  will  both  be 
held  to  high  account. 

And  your  invitation  still  further  suggests,  or 
it  takes  for  granted,  that,  separated  though  our 
two  nations  are  by  the  longest  international 
boundary  in  all  the  world,  and  different  the  parts 
our  two  nations  play  in  the  great  world  tragedy  of 
the  ages,  yet,  standing  aghast  and  solemnised  in 
the  dread  presence  of  the  world  crisis,  these  two 
American  nations  of  the  English  speech  and  of 
the  Christian  faith  are  one  people;  one  in  the 
tradition  and  background  of  their  freedom;  one 
in  the  supreme  problem  of  their  Governments; 
one  in  their  responsibility  for  civilisation  in  this 
western  hemisphere;  one  in  their  consecration  to 
the  justice  and  liberty  and  peace  of  all  the  world. 

THE  WORLD  CRISIS 

The  story  needs  no  telling :  in  all  the  languages 
of  men  it  tells  itself.  The  picture  needs  no  paint- 
ing :  on  the  blackened  sky  it  is  etched  in  the  flashes 


LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  WORLD  CRISIS     189 

of  death.  All  the  great  nations  of  Europe,  with 
twenty- two  millions  of  their  choicest  sons,  are 
lined  up  in  war's  most  ghastly  array.  They  are 
not  all  equally  guilty,  but  in  the  spirit  of  their 
diplomacy  and  in  the  arrogance  of  their  ambition 
no  one  of  them  is  wholly  innocent.  Their  peoples 
profess  to  worship  in  the  sanctuaries  of  the  God 
of  Love,  but  most  of  their  weapons  were  shaped 
in  the  laboratories  of  Hate,  and  some  of  their 
anthems  belong  to  the  temples  of  Odin  and  Thor. 
At  the  heart  of  the  crisis  is  the  wonder  and  the 
fear  if,  at  the  end  of  the  day,  Europe's  boasted 
civilisations,  butchered  in  the  name  of  culture, 
may  not  collapse  irrevocably  into  the  ooze  and 
chaos  of  barbarism  whence  they  sprang.  And 
not  Europe  alone,  but  all  the  continents.  Not 
the  belligerents  alone,  but  all  the  nations.  There 
are  non-combatants,  but  they  too  are  victims. 
There  are  still  a  few  neutrals,  but  their  neutrality 
is  in  name  and  in  form,  and  not  in  the  judgments 
of  the  mind  or  in  the  sentiments  of  the  heart.  All 
the  world  is  indeed  a  war  zone.  No  sea  is  safe. 
No  shore  is  secure.  No  flag  is  sacred.  Law  is 
declared  a  makeshift  for  weaklings.  Brute- 
force  is  glorified  as  the  only  reality.  International 
agreements  are  torn  up  as  scraps  of  paper.  The 
sanctioned  conventions  of  civilisation  are  made 
conveniences  for  pirates  and  brigands.  Under 
our  own  eyes  the  stays  have  been  cut  and  the  bolts 


190     DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

have  been  drawn  that  hold  world  society  together. 
The  emerging  neighbourhood  of  the  nations  has 
been  crowded  back  into  the  dank  and  death  ful 
jungle.  Christianity  itself  has  been  mocked  at 
by  the  dominant  voice  in  the  land  of  Luther :  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  has  been  parodied  in  terms 
of  the  philosophy  of  hate :  and  the  foundations  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  are  being  dug  away  by  the 
uniformed  lords  of  Hell. 

To  call  this  thing,  in  the  midst  of  which  we 
stand,  "the  world  crisis,"  is  to  play  with  words 
that  in  this  presence  have  lost  their  meaning. 
World  crisis,  forsooth !  It  is  rather  a  world  cata- 
clysm. 

AND  WHY  THE  CRISIS? 

Is  this  thing  an  accident?  Is  it  an  effect  that 
had  no  cause  to  match  ?  No,  a  thousand  times  no ! 
It  is  the  inevitable  consequent  of  a  very  definite 
and  historical  antecedent.  It  is  the  lawful  in- 
ternational harvest  of  the  lawless  seed  planted  in 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  nations.  It  is  the 
ill-favoured  but  natural  progeny  of  high-praised 
but  pagan  parentage.  Like  father,  like  son ;  like 
seed,  like  harvest.  Be  not  deceived:  God  is  not 
mocked;  whatsoever  the  nations  sow,  that  shall 
they  also  reap. 

An  American  Consul,  who  has  worthily  repre- 
sented this  Republic  in  many  lands,  a  man  of 


LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  WORLD  CRISIS     191 

serious  life  and  reverent  mind,  said  to  me  not 
long  ago  that  the  question  which  haunted  him 
like  a  spectre  of  unbelief  was  this:  How  can 
there  be  a  God,  all-powerful,  all-wise  and  all- 
loving,  and  this  thing  happen?  My  answer  was 
another  question:  How  could  there  be  such  a 
God  and  this  thing  not  happen?  If  there  is  a 
moral  order  in  the  universe,  if  there  is  an  essen- 
tial difference  between  right  and  wrong,  if  na- 
tions as  well  as  men  have  a  consciousness  of  moral 
distinctions  among  their  responsible  actions,  if 
national  retribution,  slow- footed  but  sure,  fol- 
lows in  the  track  of  national  crime,  and  if  nations 
in  the  great  family  of  mankind  are  bound  to- 
gether so  that  if  one  member  sins  all  the  mem- 
bers suffer  with  it — that  is  to  say,  if  there  is  a 
God  of  nations  whose  decrees  are  immutable  and 
whose  warnings  are  not  mocked,  then  a  harvest 
of  bitterness  and  slaughter  must  be  reaped  from 
forty  years'  sowing  of  international  envy  and 
hate  and  preparation  for  war. 

The  real  conflict  is  not  between  brute  force 
and  brute  force.  It  is  between  mind  and  mind, 
between  principles  and  principles,  between  mo- 
tives and  motives,  between  ideas  and  ideas.  If 
there  is  nothing  great  on  earth  but  man,  and 
nothing  great  in  man  but  mind,  then  the  reality 
of  the  world's  conflict  is  not  the  horrid  thing  on 
the  battle-fronts  of  Flanders  or  Poland  or  the 


192      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

Dardanelles,  but  the  spectral  clash  in  the  mind 
of  the  nations;  and  the  real  weapons  of  our  war- 
fare are  not  submarines  and  long-range  guns,  but 
ideas  and  purposes  and  spiritual  forces.  Paul 
knew  that  the  seen  things  are  not  the  real  things  ; 
that  the  visible  enemies  are  not  the  real  enemies ; 
that  the  struggle,  hand  to  hand,  gun  to  gun,  bat- 
talion to  battalion,  army  to  army,  is  not  the  real 
struggle;  our  wrestling  is  not  against  flesh  and 
blood,  but  against  the  principalities,  against  the 
powers,  against  the  world-rulers  of  this  darkness, 
against  the  spiritual  hosts  of  wickedness.  And 
the  real  weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not  carnal 
but  spiritual.  The  physical  is  only  the  seeming 
and  the  outward  semblance;  the  spiritual  alone 
is  the  real.  Back  of  all  this  hideousness  and  hor- 
ror at  the  battle-front  is  that  unseen  clashing  of 
the  hosts  of  the  mind. 

Because  it  was  a  conflict  of  ideas  before  it  be- 
came a  conflict  of  armed  forces,  responsibility  for 
the  crisis  lies  far  back  of  August,  1914.  Machia- 
velli  shaped  its  ethics.  Napoleon  had  a  say  in 
its  philosophy.  Bismarck  determined  its  state- 
craft. And  in  all  our  nations,  in  America  as  well 
as  in  Europe,  among  the  diplomats  of  democ- 
racy as  well  as  in  the  dynasts  of  despotism,  the 
ideas  were  current  through  the  century,  the  false 
ideas  of  national  greatness,  the  brute-force  ideas 
of  national  power,  the  perverted  ideas  of  national 


LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  WORLD  CRISIS     193 

honour.  In  some  countries  these  ideas  were  kept 
in  check,  in  others  they  became  all-powerful,  but 
in  all  they  played  their  baneful  part,  and  all  are 
now  involved  in  the  issue. 

And  because  the  currency  of  ideas  is  not  regu- 
lated by  any  customs  tariff  the  evil  mind  has 
crossed  the  boundaries  and  the  seas.  The  ideas 
of  militarism  have  assailed  civilianism  in  every 
country.  The  national  prophets  of  the  Will-to- 
Power  have  been  heard  in  every  land,  answering 
back  the  Christian  prophets  of  the  Will-to-Serve. 
The  ideas  are  too  big,  too  persistent,  and  the 
world  is  too  small,  for  this  thing  to  be  done  in  a 
corner.  When  the  crash  came  it  ruptured  to  the 
foundations  the  ideas  that  seemed  to  stand  as 
the  sure  bulwarks  of  civilisation.  It  made  a 
chasm  deep  and  wide  between  things  as  they  were 
and  things  as  henceforth  they  must  be. 

TH£  BREACH    WITH    THE   PAST 

The  man  who  does  not  grasp  the  world  signifi- 
cance of  this  revolution  in  ideas,  this  cataclysm, 
this  breach  the  world  has  made  with  its  own  past, 
cannot  begin  to  understand  the  problems  of  the 
future.  In  the  three  great  institutions  of  civi- 
lisation, in  Society,  in  the  State,  and  in  the 
Church,  there  has  come  a  revolution  of  ideas. 
Old  things  are  passed  away:  old  formulas  are 


194      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

meaningless,  old  classifications  are  broken,  old 
shibboleths  have  lost  their  power.  There  is 
needed  a  fresh  start  and  a  new  lead. 

Society  needs  a  new  socialism.  Already  the 
old  social  ranking  is  transposed.  The  capitalist 
of  last  year  with  a  thousand  hands  subservient 
at  his  word  lines  up  to-day  as  a  private  in  the 
ranks,  with  No.  862  on  his  pay-roll  as  his  officer 
in  command.  If  Society  is  to  recover  there  must 
come  a  socialism  in  which  individual  selfishness 
and  class  antagonisms  and  the  fierce  competitions 
of  wild  beasts  in  the  jungle  shall  not  prevail;  a 
socialism  in  which  the  Haves  shall  not  ride  on  the 
backs  of  the  Have-nots ;  a  socialism  of  socialized 
society  in  which  there  is  neither  arrogant  master- 
ship nor  envious  servitude,  in  which  no  man 
eats  bread  by  the  sweat  of  some  other  man's  brow, 
and  in  which  in  justice  and  in  love  there  is  dis- 
tributed to  each  according  to  his  need  and  re- 
quired from  each  according  to  his  power;  a  so- 
cialism that  makes  the  strength  of  the  strong  the 
stay  of  the  weak,  and  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  the 
guide  of  the  foolish ;  a  socialism  in  whose  realised 
social  order  men  and  women  and  little  children 
live  together  and  work  together  as  neighbours  in 
a  world-neighbourhood,  as  brothers  in  a  recon- 
structed and  regenerated  brotherhood  of  man. 

The  State  needs  a  new  politic.  Old  political 
theories,  as  illustrated  in  prevailing  political  in- 


LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  WORLD  CRISIS     195 

stitutions,  must  be  reconceived.  The  discredited 
Prussian  idea  of  the  State  as  a  thing  of  Divine 
Right,  above  conscience,  free  from  law,  and  inde- 
pendent of  the  people,  is  less  dangerous  to  the 
world  than  is  the  everyday  practice  under  free 
government  where  Democracy  is  shouted  from 
the  housetops  at  election  time,  but  denied  in  the 
offices  of  administration  and  in  the  bossism  of 
parties  all  the  year  round.  It  is  not  enough  that 
the  political  theory  of  Democracy  should  be 
proved  sound:  power  for  the  people  must  mean 
something  more  than  the  right  to  vote.  It  is 
not  enough  for  the  integrity  of  the  State  in  North 
America  that  south  of  the  Great  Lakes  are  heard 
historic  quotations  from  the  Fathers  of  American 
Independence,  and  north  of  the  line  great  words 
from  the  Fathers  of  Canadian  Confederation,  if 
under  both  flags  the  maxim  of  the  Scottish  brig- 
and Rob  Roy  is  tolerated : 

"That  they  should  take  who  have  the 

power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can," 

and  if  the  sacred  words  at  Gettysburg  are  in 
political  experience  changed  to  mean  "govern- 
ment of  the  people  by  the  rascals  for  the  rich." 
Government  must  work  out  to  mean  something 
worthier  than  mis-government  by  proxy,  or 
Democracy  is  only  a  more  vulgar  form  of  Des- 


196      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

potism.  Party  government  itself  must  be  recon- 
ceived.  It  must  be  made  everlastingly  plain  that 
the  whole  duty  of  all  political  parties  is  to  the 
People,  and  not  at  all  to  the  grafters,  the  office- 
seekers,  and  the  party  heelers.  "His  Majesty's 
Loyal  Opposition"  has  a  duty  second  in  respon- 
sibility, and  in  dignity  not  even  second,  to  the 
duty  resting  upon  "His  Majesty's  Government" : 
the  duty  of  criticism  and  co-operation,  that  the 
rights  of  the  people  may  be  secure,  their  laws 
just,  and  their  lives  free.  And  the  State  itself 
must  be  lifted  in  its  thinking  to  take  its  rightful 
place  of  citizenship  and  service  in  the  newborn 
democracy  of  the  internationalized  world.  The 
old  politic  of  national  exclusion  is  outgrown.  In 
political  ideas  there  must  come  a  new  lead. 

And  the  Church  needs  a  new  ecclesiasticism. 
The  old  ecclesiastical  order  is  out  of  joint.  De- 
nominationalism  has  run  to  seed.  The  mint  and 
the  anise  and  the  cumin,  Europe  being  witness, 
have  taken  the  place  of  the  weightier  matters  of 
the  law,  and  a  pagan  philosophy,  an  unspiritual 
ethic  and  a  sociology  that  knows  no  Christ  have 
drugged  the  nerve  of  the  Gospel.  The  Church 
must  reconceive  itself,  not  as  the  echo  of  State 
policies,  but  as  the  embodiment  and  spokesman  of 
Christianity.  It  must  up  again  to  the  hilltops,  to 
Calvary  and  to  Olivet,  and  renew  its  vision  of  the 
world.    The  Church  was  not  meant  to  be  the  cult 


LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  WORLD  CRISIS     197 

of  an  outworn  creed,  but  the  fountain  of  world 
ideas ;  not  the  conservator  of  things  as  they  were, 
but  the  irrepressible  campaigner  for  things  as 
they  ought  to  be ;  not  the  dealer  in  dull  narcotics 
that  numb  the  pains  of  new  thinking  and  soothe 
the  nation  with  Peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no 
peace,  but  the  resistless  dynamic  of  a  new  life 
that  will  smash  through  the  Dardanelles  of  dead 
dogma  and  stir  the  wilderness  of  arid  formalism 
into  the  glad  fragrance  of  a  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth. 

Because  of  the  world's  breach  with  its  own 
past,  and  because  of  the  urgent  needs  in  So- 
ciety, in  the  State  and  in  the  Church,  the  call  of 
humanity  is  direct  and  piercing  for  another 
chance  and  a  new  leadership.  That  call  is  loud- 
est and  most  compelling  in  North  America.  And 
that  leadership  must  be  inspired  by  the  Church 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

WHY  NORTH  AMERICA'S  I,EAD£RSHIP. 

The  call  for  leadership  comes  to  North  Ameri- 
ca, because,  among  the  leader-nations  of  the 
world,  this  Republic  alone  even  calls  itself  neutral. 
The  United  States  is  not  undisturbed,  but  your 
ears  have  not  been  filled  with  the  noise  of  actual 
battle,  your  heart  has  not  been  held  in  the  hard 
grip  of  actual  war,  and  the  best  of  your  sons 


198     DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

have  not  gone  out  to  die  by  the  tens  of  thousands 
for  your  nation's  life. 

Neutrality  has  its  advantages,  and  isolation 
from  the  conflict  has  its  immunities.  But  no 
theory  of  neutrality,  be  it  never  so  just,  and  no 
experience  of  national  isolation,  be  it  never  so 
remunerative,  can  secure  for  the  United  States  of 
America  immunity  from  the  pains  and  penalties 
of  Europe's  anguish,  or  can  make  the  struggle 
of  other  nations  only  a  harvest  time  for  Ameri- 
can manufacturers  of  munitions  of  war.  When 
humanity  goes  up  to  its  Golgotha,  it  means  the 
blood-sweat  of  Gethsemane  for  every  nation. 

The  United  States  owes  too  much  to  Europe — 
to  Britain,  to  France,  to  Germany,  to  all  the  war- 
ring nations,  and  to  the  imperilled  causes  of  free- 
dom and  justice  and  peace — the  United  States 
owes  too  much  to  civilisation  to  be  neutral  in  its 
ideas  when  the  whole  fabric  of  civilised  thinking 
is  tottering  into  ruin.  "Noblesse  oblige"  makes 
it  impossible  for  this  Republic  to  be  uncommit- 
ted in  its  services  and  sacrifices  when  human- 
ity, robbed  to-day  of  the  blood  of  a  whole  gen- 
eration of  its  coming  patriots  and  heroes,  calls 
aloud  for  to-morrow's  leaders.  Humanity  will 
need  another  Washington,  and  another  Jeffer- 
son, another  Franklin  and  another  Hamilton  to 
make  good  a  new  Declaration  of  Independence 
for  all  the  world;  and  many  another  Lincoln  to 


LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  WORLD  CRISIS     199 

emancipate  the  minds  of  the  nations  from  the 
thraldom  of  hate,  and  to  make  possible  a  United 
States,  not  of  Europe  alone,  but  of  the  world,  so 
that  government  of  the  people  by  the  people  and 
for  the  people  may  not  perish  from  the  earth. 
And  in  its  distress  humanity  has  the  right  to 
turn  to  this  American  democracy,  this  "the  heir 
of  all  the  ages" ;  has  the  right  to  make  appeal  to 
you  and  your  Churches,  to  your  homes  and  your 
schools,  to  your  universities  and  your  seminaries ; 
the  commanding  right  to  send  out  its  Macedonian 
cry  for  leaders  from  America  to  take  the  places 
of  the  millions  who  are  falling  in  Europe's  war. 
And  what  is  the  answer  ?  Does  North  America 
to-day  breed  the  leaders  for  the  world  of  to- 
morrow ? 

THE    LEADERSHIP    01?    JESUS 

In  the  clamour  and  confusion  of  this  world- 
crisis  one  call  strikes  with  the  note  of  hope.  That 
call  is  "Back  to  Christ/'  When  the  great  nations 
of  Europe,  the  nations  that  are  called  Christian, 
broke  into  this  most  anti-Christian  war  in  Au- 
gust last,  the  cry  went  up:  "Christianity  has 
failed."  The  tone  of  that  cry  sometimes  was  of 
exultation,  sometimes  of  despair,  sometimes  of 
sad  surprise.  Now  that  a  year  has  well  nigh 
gone,  and  month  by  month  the  war  circle  widens 


200     DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

and  the  war  tragedy  darkens,  leaving  only  here 
and  there  a  little  people  not  swept  into  the  vortex 
or  skirting  the  edge,  the  cry  of  August  has  be- 
come an  earnest  question:  "Has  Christianity 
failed?"  And  as  the  clouds  hang  heavier,  as  the 
sorrow  comes  nearer  still,  as  one  by  one  all  other 
hopes  vanish  and  all  other  schemes  break  down, 
the  heart  of  humanity  rises  to  a  higher  key  and 
utters  an  urgent  note  of  hope :  "Back  to  Christ." 
Christianity  has  not  failed.  In  the  realm  of 
international  life  Christianity  has  in  reality  never 
yet  been  honestly  tried.  As  between  Britain  and 
America  the  Christian  temper  has  never  for  long 
been  wholly  absent.  Through  the  hundred  years 
of  Anglo-American  peace  the  qualities  of  Chris- 
tian feeling  grew  into  our  diplomacy.  But  this 
has  been  the  result  of  the  personal  equation  in 
Christian  character  among  the  individuals  deal- 
ing with  international  affairs — the  British  Sov- 
ereigns and  the  American  Presidents,  the  succes- 
sion of  Ambassadors  in  London  and  in  Washing- 
ton, the  high  quality  of  statesmanship  on*one  side 
and  on  the  other — rather  than  the  result  of  defi- 
nite Christian  principles  and  purposes  deliberately 
inwrought  in  international  policy  and  impel- 
ling to  international  action.  Our  nations  as  na- 
tions are  only  beginning  to  think  internationally. 
Even  in  our  Anglo-American  civilisation  there 
will  not  be  any  real  international  Christianity  un- 


LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  WORLD  CRISIS     201 

til  into  our  international  thought  and  feeling  and 
life  there  comes  a  more  definite  sense  of  interna- 
tional Christian  brotherhood,  a  brotherhood  high- 
er and  deeper  than  any  brotherhood  of  blood. 
That  Christian  brotherhood  of  the  nations  means 
not  only  personal  Christian  faith  and  fidelity  in 
individual  citizens,  but  it  means  also  in  the  na- 
tional life  and  consciousness  a  national  allegiance 
and  devotion  to  the  international  Christ. 

Humanity's  surprising  discovery  in  the  black- 
ness and  grief  of  this  international  war  will  be 
the  person  and  leadership  of  the  International 
Christ. 

The  Man  of  Nazareth  was  the  world's  first  in- 
ternationalist, the  product  of  no  narrow  racial- 
ism. He  was  the  Son  of  Man.  Up  to  Calvary 
He  went,  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  From  Olivet 
He  commissioned  His  apostles  to  all  nations  with 
the  herald  proclamation  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
The  premier  spokesman  for  His  world  program 
saw  Christ  cross  all  chasms  of  race,  of  social 
conditions  and  of  sex :  the  platform  of  Christian- 
ity bridges  the  abyss  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  be- 
tween male  and  female,  between  bond  and  free. 
The  leaders  of  the  Protestant  Reformation 
caught  a  glimmer  of  the  larger  truth  when  they 
met  the  pretensions  of  the  Papacy  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  National  Church.  And  Scotland, 
little  Scotland,  through  all  the  dark  years  of  Se- 


202      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

cession  and  Covenant,  sealed  for  the  world  with 
the  blood  of  her  martyrs  the  oath  of  her  testi- 
mony to  the  Headship  of  Christ  over  the  nations 
of  the  world.  And  when,  in  this  twentieth  cen- 
tury, the  Church  catches  the  radiant  vision  on 
the  international  horizon  line,  there,  in  all  His 
Messianic  glory  and  with  all  His  kingly  power, 
the  Church  will  see,  and  will  make  the  nations 
see,  the  Christ  stand.    The  International  Christ ! 


CANADA  :   ITS   TETHER  AND  ITS 
TOLL* 

WHY  should  Canada  be  involved  in  this  war 
of  Europe  ?  By  what  tether  are  our  sym- 
pathies and  our  sons  drawn  to  the  battle-fronts 
of  France  and  of  Flanders?  What  toll  must  be 
paid  by  this  peaceful,  young  democracy  of  the 
new  world  before  the  despotic  frightfulness  of 
the  old  world  is  done  ? 

Questions  such  as  these  were  suggested  to  me 
ten  days  ago  by  two  addresses  at  the  Annual  Com- 
mencement of  Western  Reserve  University  in 
Cleveland,  Ohio.  Both  speakers  were  Americans 
of  national  eminence.  One  was  David  Starr  Jor- 
dan, the  Chancellor  of  Leland  Stanford  Univer- 
sity. The  other  was  John  G.  White,  a  Cleveland 
lawyer  of  distinction  as  a  jurist.  Their  words 
were  addressed  specially  to  a  great  body  of  uni- 
versity alumni.  The  atmosphere  of  their  thinking 
and  the  point  of  their  argument  was  the  great  war 
in  Europe,  and  the  tests  and  responsibilities  it  pre- 
sented to  the  two  English-speaking  nations  of 
America. 

♦An  Address  at  Priceville,  Ontario,  1915. 
203 


204      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

Dr.  Jordan,  speaking  as  an  expert  in  biology 
and  a  student  of  the  Social  Problem  of  the  na- 
tions, condemned  war,  both  just  and  unjust  war, 
because  of  the  toll  it  takes  and  the  trail  it  leaves. 
The  toll  of  war  is  not  in  money  alone,  or  in  ter- 
ritory, or  in  social  happiness,  but  in  the  best  of  the 
human  breed,  in  the  choicest  of  the  nation's  sons, 
in  the  "men  of  the  finer  strain"  through  whom 
nature  would  preserve  and  reproduce  the  rare 
spark  of  genius  that  gives  the  world  its  poets,  its 
artists,  its  philosophers,  its  statesmen,  its  men 
who  are  the  measure  and  the  glory  of  the  race. 
He  argued  that  in  war  the  fittest  do  not  survive, 
that  the  bravest  and  best  are  first  to  enlist  and 
first  to  fall,  and  that  this  "reversed  selection"  in 
the  biology  of  war  means  for  the  nation  the  sur- 
vival of  the  unfit.    Its  end  is  national  decay. 

As  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War  and  as  spokes- 
man for  his  university  class  of  1865,  Mr.  White 
seemed  to  justify  the  wars  of  history  that  called 
men  to  heroic  death  for  their  country's  sake,  and 
that  urged  them  to  self-sacrifice  without  concern 
for  "the  finer  strain."  He  rang  the  changes  on 
Thermopylae  and  Marathon,  on  Waterloo  and 
Lucknow,  on  Quebec  and  Valley  Forge,  on  the 
Wilderness  and  Gettysburg,  on  the  Marne  and 
Ypres.  He  made  appeal  to  "the  glory  that  was 
Greece"  and  to  the  greatness  that  is  Belgium. 

It  is  with  these  thoughts  in  mind — the  thoughts 


CANADA:  ITS  TETHER  AND  ITS  TOLL     205 

of  the  patriot  who  is  also  a  man  of  science  and  a 
student  of  history,  and  the  thoughts  of  the  other 
patriot  whose  blood  stirs  at  the  bugle  call  and 
thrills  again  at  the  story  of  the  battle  charge — it 
is  with  these  thoughts  and  feelings  and  restless 
questions  that  bear  on  our  Canadian  situation 
to-day,  I  come  to  share  in  your  patriotic  dem- 
onstration, and  to  do  honour  to  the  young  men  of 
this  district  who  have  joined  the  colours  and  are 
on  their  way  to  the  front. 

The  questions  of  Canada's  tether  and  its  toll 
are  real  questions.  They  are  our  questions. 
They  will  not  down.  They  cannot  be  dismissed 
with  a  wave  of  the  hand.  They  are  worlds  away 
from  the  shallow  clamour  of  political  partisan- 
ship. They  deal  with  the  content  and  quality  of 
Canada's  nationalism.  They  involve  the  eternal 
laws  by  which  the  future  of  a  nation  grows  out 
of  its  past.  They  ask  what  part  Canada  is  to 
play,  not  for  itself  alone,  but  in  that  wider  family 
of  nations  of  which  in  days  to  come  Canada  must 
count  for  one,  and  which,  after  the  war,  must  live 
together  or  die  together  within  the  four  corners 
of  the  world-neighbourhood.  These  are  ques- 
tions which  Canadians  must  face  with  open  eyes 
and  steady  hearts : 

Why  should  Canada  be  involved  in  this  war 
of  Europe? 

By  what  tether  are  our  sympathies  and  our 


206      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

sons  drawn  to  the  battle- fronts  of  Flanders  and 
of  France? 

What  toll  must  Canada  pay  before  this  fright- 
fulness  of  Europe  is  done? 

WHY  CANADA  WAS  MADE 

It  was  not  for  war  that  Canada  was  made. 
Forty-eight  years  ago  this  very  week  this  new 
nation  began  its  national  history.  Dominion  Day 
commemorates  the  birth  of  the  Canadian  Domin- 
ion. Our  forefathers,  the  pioneers  of  those  vast 
Canadian  wildernesses,  blazed  trails  west  and 
north  from  the  sea.  They  came  from  Britain, 
from  mid-Europe  and  from  the  older  American 
Colonies  to  make  homes  for  themselves  and  their 
families  and  to  establish  a  homeland  for  their 
children's  children.  But  it  was  not  for  war  they 
came. 

I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  distinction  which 
marked  the  early  settlement  of  this  very  com- 
munity and  the  towns  and  townships  in  these 
counties  roundabout.  The  pioneers  whose  memo- 
ries you  cherish,  whose  names  many  of  you  bear, 
and  whose  Gaelic  mother-tongue  many  of  you 
still  speak,  came  to  Canada  from  the  Highlands 
and  islands  of  Scotland.  Your  family  names, 
scattered  wide  over  Grey  and  Bruce  and  Huron 
and  Middlesex  and  Perth  and  Oxford,  are  the  his- 


CANADA:  ITS  TETHER  AND  ITS  TOLL    207 

toric  clan  names  of  Scotland.  Your  family  rec- 
ords, like  my  own,  go  back  to  the  dark  days  when 
the  glens  and  the  moors  were  drained  of  their 
bravest  men  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  the  kilted  regi- 
ments that  fought  for  Britain's  glory  from  Cullo- 
den  to  Cathay :  and  to  the  still  darker  days  when 
what  of  blood  and  brawn  left  in  the  glens  by  the 
recruiting  sergeant  was  swept  off  the  lands  for 
which  their  fathers  died  to  make  room  for  the 
landlord's  sheep  and  for  the  Duke's  pheasants  and 
big-horned  stag.  If  our  ancestral  blood  answers 
to  the  pibroch  of  war,  it  answers  also  to  the  two 
centuries  of  injustice  which  made  our  forefathers 
exiles  from  the  lands  that  ought  to  have  been 
theirs,  and  begot  in  us  the  deep  conviction  that 
landlordism  has  been  as  cruel  and  as  devastating 
to  Britain  as  Prussian  militarism  has  been  to  Ger- 
many. 

In  those  days  of  the  sailing  vessels  on  the  sea 
and  long  before  the  day  of  railways  on  the  land, 
through  the  last  half  of  the  seventeenth  century 
and  on  through  the  eighteenth,  those  hardy  High- 
landers by  the  thousand  came  in  shiploads  from 
the  ports  of  the  Clyde  and  the  Argyllshire  coast, 
yearning  westward  across  the  trackless  ocean  for 
a  new  land  where  they  might  make  a  fresh  start 
and  create  a  free  life  in  a  new  civilisation.  The 
trails  of  those  migrations  run  westward  across 
Canada  from  Cape  Breton,  from  Prince  Edward 


208     DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

Island,  from  Nova  Scotia,  from  New  Brunswick, 
up  the  St.  Lawrence,  up  the  Ottawa,  along  the 
Great  Lakes,  and  then  north  and  west  through  the 
primeval  forests  where  now  smiles  this  great 
Province  of  Ontario. 

What  heroes  those  pioneers  must  have  been! 
What  strength  in  their  men!  What  courage  in 
their  women!  What  proud  ambition!  What 
heroic  endurance !  What  hope  that  conquered  the 
invincible !  What  faith  that  removed  the  impos- 
sible mountains !  With  hearts  that  never  fainted, 
with  wills  that  never  were  daunted,  with  a  love 
that  never  failed,  those  men  and  women  of  the 
early  days  were  the  real  discoverers  of  Canada, 
the  true  makers  of  the  nation,  and  when  the  jew- 
els are  made  up  their  lives  will  not  be  lost. 

CANADA    NOT    FOR    WAR 

But  it  was  not  for  war  the  adventurous  pio- 
neers came  to  Canada.  It  was  not  for  war  they 
cleared  the  forests  and  drained  the  swamps.  It 
was  not  for  war  they  changed  the  jungle  into  a 
neighbourhood.  It  was  not  for  war  their  women 
brought  forth  children  in  all  the  sorrows  of  pio- 
neer life.  It  was  not  as  food  for  the  cannon  of 
war  they  trained  their  sons  in  the  arts  and  indus- 
tries of  peace.  Many  of  us  have  in  our  veins  no 
other  blood  than  the  wild  and  fiery  blood  of  the 


CANADA:  ITS  TETHER  AND  ITS  TOLL     209 

fighting  clans  of  Scotland,  blood  that  has  not 
been  cooled  or  tamed  by  the  half-dozen  genera- 
tions that  separate  us  from  the  dark  glens  and  the 
heathery  hills.  But  it  was  not  to  make  ready  for 
another  "killing  time"  men  of  the  Scottish  Cove- 
nant crossed  the  seas  and  sired  a  new  generation 
on  the  virgin  soil  of  Canada.  The  tartan  plaid 
was  no  cover  for  a  coward  heart,  but  men  of  the 
tartan  learned  that  serving  men  is  nobler  work 
than  killing  men,  and  that  peace  means  courage 
greater  than  war.  Here  in  Canada  the  broad- 
swords were  sheathed.  The  clan  feuds  were  for- 
gotten. The  war  of  races  was  outgrown.  The 
hot-blooded  Celt  came  to  trust  the  Sassenach 
whom  once  he  hated.  When  Canada  became  a 
self-governing  Dominion  the  hope  was  cherished 
that  on  this  half -continent  a  new  nation  should 
grow  to  greatness  and  world-service  with  no  bat- 
tlefield on  its  map,  no  war  page  in  its  history,  and 
with  its  finest  strain  and  its  fittest  sons  preserved 
from  the  wanton  waste  of  war  to  beget  a  finer  and 
a  fitter  race.  That  was  indeed  a  noble  ambition, 
and  nobly  Canada  might  have  achieved  it. 

And  Canada  led  the  way.  It  was  a  great  ad- 
venture, that  peaceful  break  for  nationhood 
made  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Canadian  Confedera- 
tion a  half -century  ago.  The  explorers  of  that 
day  who  went  out  looking  for  a  nation  in  a  wil- 
derness were  men  of  genius,  of  courage,  of  vision, 


210      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

of  faith :  Mackenzie  and  Papineau,  Baldwin  and 
Lafontaine,  George  Brown  and  John  A.  Mac- 
donald,  Joseph  Howe  and  Charles  Tupper.  Not 
with  fire  and  sword,  but  with  the  power  of  a  great 
idea,  they  came,  they  saw,  they  conquered.  An 
apron-strings  colony  became  a  self-governing  na- 
tion. And  not  Canada  alone,  but  Australia  as 
well,  and  New  Zealand,  and  then  across  the  veldt 
of  South  Africa,  each  a  free  nation,  the  shackles 
of  colonialism  all  struck  off.  The  tether  of  love 
and  of  liberty  proved  stronger  than  all  the  man- 
dates of  fear  and  all  the  compulsions  of  force. 
When  the  colonies  became  free  nations  autocratic 
Imperialism  in  Britain  was  cast  off  like  a  thing 
disproved,  and  the  old  Empire,  with  its  roots 
among  the  shattered  Empires  of  the  past,  became 
a  new  Commonwealth,  with  its  fruits  in  the 
world-democracy  of  the  future.  That  transfor- 
mation from  world-Empire  to  world-Common- 
wealth is  the  greatest  achievement  of  modern 
British  history,  and  is  the  vital  outgrowth  of  the 
new  idea  which  started  Canada  in  the  way  of  na- 
tionhood without  war  and  without  separation 
eight  and  forty  years  ago. 

For  Canada  had  a  great  start.  Never  in  all 
history  did  any  young  nation  set  out  with  so  many 
good  stars  in  its  horoscope.  French  and  British, 
at  strife  in  Europe,  joined  hands  on  the  St.  Law- 
rence.   The  finest  strains  of  the  best  races  of  the 


CANADA:  ITS  TETHER  AND  ITS  TOLL     211 

old  world  went  into  Canadian  veins.  The  experi- 
ences of  the  American  colonies,  the  earlier  experi- 
ments of  the  Republic  in  State  sovereignty  and 
in  Federal  unity,  their  failures  and  their  suc- 
cesses, all  were  plain  as  warnings  and  as  examples 
for  the  colonies  of  Canada. 

Canada's  start  came  as  a  new  day  was  dawning 
in  Britain.  The  arrogance  of  British  autocracy 
in  the  half-Junker  days  of  George  III.  was  left 
behind  in  the  larger  democratic  days  of  Queen 
Victoria.  Canada  came  to  nationhood  after  aris- 
tocratic rule  had  given  way  to  responsible  govern- 
ment, and  the  Liberal  ideas  of  Chatham  and 
Burke  had  triumphed  over  the  reactionary  notions 
of  Lord  North  and  the  King.  There  was  no 
revolution  in  Canada,  and  in  Britain  nothing 
worse  than  doubts  and  fears,  forty-eight  years 
ago  when  Dominion  Day  was  given  a  place  in  the 
Canadian  calendar.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
world's  history  a  colony  grew  into  a  nation  with- 
out the  bitterness  of  revolution  and  without  the 
loss  of  that  heritage  of  history  which  gives  rich- 
ness and  dignity  to  the  life  of  the  nation. 

THE    COMING    OF    WAR 

But  war  has  come  our  way.  It  was  not  our 
war.  At  first  it  was  not  even  Britain's  war. 
Canada  was  the  enemy  of  no  one  of  the  nations 


Sl«      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

of  Europe.  The  people  of  Germany,  the  people  of 
Austria,  even  the  people  of  Turkey,  if  they  knew 
us  at  all,  knew  us  only  as  friends.  The  oppressed 
and  persecuted  of  their  lands  came  to  our  shores 
and  were  made  welcome.  Escaping  from  bond- 
age there  they  found  liberty  here.  An  aristocrat 
among  the  peoples  the  Anglo-Saxon  always  may 
have  been,  but  in  Canada  he  gave  a  second  chance, 
an  equal  chance,  to  the  crowded-out  Teuton  and 
Slav  and  Turk,  crowded  out  of  their  ancestral 
homes  in  Europe.  We  wished  them  well,  and  we 
wished  no  harm  to  their  homelands,  but  only 
peace  and  the  larger  freedom  which  we  ourselves 
enjoyed. 

Even  now,  though  they  are  all  our  alien  ene- 
mies, it  is  with  something  of  a  sense  of  tragedy 
we  think  of  the  mess  Europe  has  made  of  its  life. 
It  is  an  unspeakable  tragedy  that  the  Teutons  of 
Germany,  who  are  of  the  same  race-family  as 
the  Anglo-Saxons  of  England,  the  world's  lead- 
ers in  political  freedom,  should  be  the  political 
pawns  of  an  arrogant  half-Slavic  Prussian  bu- 
reaucracy, the  bewildered  victims  of  a  false  phil- 
osophy, the  intellectual  slaves  of  a  brute-force 
notion  of  national  greatness,  led  captive  by  a  dy- 
nasty gone  mad  in  its  lust  for  world  domination. 
To  Englishmen  what  is  now  a  hideous  tragedy 
was  at  first  a  gruesome  farce.  They  could  not 
believe  that  their  Teuton  half-brothers  had  sur- 


CANADA:  ITS  TETHER  AND  ITS  TOLL     213 

rendered  to  the  Divine  Right  mania  of  the  House 
of  Hohenzollern  and  had  in  very  truth  started 
out  to  impose  their  culture  on  the  world.  That 
is  indeed  the  mocking  tragedy  of  modern  life. 

But  when  the  war  came  in  August  last,  so  far 
as  Britain  was  concerned,  there  was  nothing  for 
it  but  war.  Had  Britain  done  other  than  she  did, 
had  she  allowed  the  brutal  and  infamous  invasion 
of  Belgium,  had  she  stood  idly  by  while  the  giant 
murderer  of  innocence  worked  his  fiendish  way  in 
Europe,  British  honour  would  have  been  betrayed, 
the  trust  of  the  over-seas  Dominions  would  have 
been  put  to  shame,  and  had  the  Prussian  tri- 
umphed, Britain's  own  day  of  sorrow  would  have 
followed  speedily,  when  there  would  have  been 
none  to  pity  and  few  to  help. 

That  tether  holds  when  self-interest  gives  way, 
when  prudence  yields,  and  even  when  the  pledges 
of  honour  are  but  a  scrap  of  paper.  All  the  ties  of 
common  language  and  common  blood  and  com- 
mon history  were  involved  in  the  relation  of  the 
American  colonies  to  the  British  Crown  when 
Junker  autocracy  was  on  the  throne.  But  those 
ties  did  not  hold.  The  King  and  his  Government, 
in  defiance  of  the  appeals  of  the  great  commoners 
and  leaders  of  the  people,  did  violence  to  the 
deep  sense  of  justice  and  freedom  inherited  by 
the  colonies  from  the  mother  country,  and  the 
threefold  cord  of  language,  blood  and  history 


214      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

snapped  like  a  rope  of  straw.  But  to-day,  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  after  the  alienation  that  led  to 
revolution,  and  after  the  seeds  of  strife  and  mis- 
understanding have  grown  to  their  full  harvest  of 
suspicion  and  fear,  the  great  heart  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republic  beats  again  in  unison  with  the  heart 
of  Britain.  The  sympathy  of  the  United  States, 
neutral  though  its  Government  may  be,  is  with 
the  Allies.  The  typical  American,  north  or 
south,  east  or  west,  again  and  again  during  recent 
months,  and  despite  all  that  war  would  mean,  has 
been  like  a  blood-hound  straining  at  the  leash  and 
eager  for  the  fray. 

And  why  ?  Why  do  you  hear  British  war  melo- 
dies in  American  theatres  ?  Why,  in  holiday  time 
around  the  camp-fire,  in  the  Maine  woods,  by  the 
Jersey  shore  or  among  the  Virginia  hills  where 
every  man  is  an  American,  perhaps  boasting  Rev- 
olutionary blood,  may  you  hear  night  after  night 
"My  Country,  Tis  of  Thee"  and  "God  Save  the 
King"?  No,  it  is  not  blood:  English  blood  in 
American  veins  is  thin  and  greatly  mixed.  It 
is  not  business :  during  the  past  decade  the  Ameri- 
can people  developed  almost  more  community  of 
interest  in  science  and  industry  with  the  people 
of  Germany  than  with  the  people  of  Britain.  It 
is  not  even  the  English  language,  although  a  com- 
mon speech  is  a  prime  channel  of  exchange  for 
common  ideas. 


CANADA:  ITS  TETHER  AND  ITS  TOLL     215 

The  reason  goes  deeper.  The  editor  of  one  of 
the  foremost  American  newspapers  told  me  why 
some  months  ago.  "Every  drop  of  my  blood,"  he 
said,  "is  Teuton,  but  all  the  passion  of  my  heart 
and  all  the  effort  of  my  life  is  with  Britain,  be- 
cause I  see  all  our  American  institutions  of  free- 
dom and  self-government  assailed  by  Germany 
and  defended  by  Britain."  An  American  college 
professor  of  German  name  and  birth  and  educa- 
tion said  to  me  only  the  other  day:  "If  I  knew 
of  any  process  by  which  all  that  is  German  in  my 
blood  could  be  extracted  from  my  veins  right 
gladly  would  I  use  that  process,  because  of  Ger- 
many's treason  to  freedom  and  justice  and  hu- 
manity during  the  past  twelve  months."  But 
there  is  no  such  process.  Nor  is  any  needed. 
Blood  heredities  may  persist,  but  it  is  the  mind, 
not  the  blood,  that  makes  the  man. 

Freedom  is  the  strongest  tether  of  life.  It  is 
the  steadiest  impulse  of  the  heart.  It  is  the  surest 
social  bond.  Freedom  and  justice  and  truth !  By 
that  tether  the  free  Dominions  are  held  loyal  to 
Britain.  By  that  magnet  the  men  of  Canada  are 
drawn  to  the  deadly  war  trenches  of  Europe. 
That  impulse  makes  us  one  with  the  Belgians  and 
the  French,  with  the  restless  people  of  Italy  and 
the  vast  moving  hosts  of  Russia,  with  the  op- 
pressed nationalities  in  the  Balkan  States  and 
with  struggling  peoples  of  every  race  and  land 


216     DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

eager  to  be  free.    Freedom  is  the  bond  of  union. 
Freedom  is  Canada's  tether.    That  tether  holds. 


The   Tow,   OF   WAR 

But  war  always  takes  its  toll.  That  toll  always 
must  be  paid.  And  it  must  be  paid  by  Canada, 
and  paid  now.  It  is  not  a  thing  of  chance  or 
a  matter  of  choice.  Every  nation  that  goes  to 
war,  whether  aggressor  or  defender,  must  pay 
that  inexorable  toll.  It  is  not  a  question  of  the 
justness  of  the  cause  or  of  the  patriotism  and 
courage  of  the  men.  War  is  a  game  in  which  one 
may  be  right  and  one  wrong,  but  the  war  god 
mockingly  takes  toll  from  both. 

Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  David  Starr  Jor- 
dan is  right.  Professor  J.  Arthur  Thompson,  the 
great  British  biologist,  is  right.  Charles  Darwin 
was  right.  Speaking  in  the  measured  terms  of 
biological  science,  they  have  all  warned  us  that 
if  war  kills  off  an  undue  proportion  of  the  physi- 
cally fit,  of  the  morally  courageous,  of  the  youths 
of  chivalric  spirit,  of  the  men  of  the  finer  strain, 
then,  as  sure  as  the  harvest  follows  the  seed,  de- 
generation will  come  to  the  nation's  breed. 

What  biology  warns  history  affirms.  For  the 
moment  some  nation  may  seem  to  have  escaped, 
but  in  the  long  run  the  law  has  its  way :  like  seed 
like  harvest,  like  father  like  son,  the  nation  that 


CANADA:  ITS  TETHER  AND  ITS  TOLL     817 

sacrifices  its  men  of  fitness  and  courage  who  go 
to  the  war,  and  breeds  its  next  generation  from 
weaklings  and  cowards  who  are  left  behind,  will 
tend  to  weakness  and  cowardice  in  its  national 
life.  There  are  checks  and  balances  and  correct- 
ing factors:  but,  be  not  deceived,  biology  is  not 
mocked;  whatsoever  a  nation  soweth  that  shall 
it  also  reap. 

Let  history  answer.  What  became  of  "the 
glory  that  was  Greece"?  What  befel  the  im- 
perium  that  was  Rome?  What  destroyed  the 
empire  that  was  France?  It  was  the  law  of  life. 
Heroes  and  patriots  bred  heroes  and  patriots. 
Cowards  and  weaklings  bred  cowards  and  weak- 
lings. When  the  fit  were  slain  and  the  unfit  sur- 
vived, the  race  degenerated  and  the  empire  fell. 
Biology  was  not  mocked. 

And  what  about  the  toll  from  Britain?  Did 
ever  Empire  pay  with  wider  sweep  or  more  lav- 
ish hand!  Mistress  of  the  Seas?  Yes,  and  with 
a  mistress-ship  that  means  freedom  for  all  except 
the  pirates  and  buccaneers.    But  at  what  a  cost ! 

"If  blood  be  the  price  of  Admiralty, 
Lord  God,  we  ha'  paid  in  full." 

And  as  never  before  in  all  her  thousand  years 
Britain  pays  in  full  to-day.  Three  million  men 
under  arms,  so  a  despatch  tells,  means  more  than 
half  of  all  the  men  in  the  whole  United  Kingdom 


218      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  forty-five.  They 
are  the  best  that  Britain  can  breed.  To  make  up 
Kitchener's  army  the  best  have  come  from  the 
cottage  and  from  the  castle,  from  the  glen  and 
from  the  city,  from  behind  the  counter  and  from 
the  university  classroom.  The  rake  of  war  gath- 
ered in  the  best,  not  the  weaklings,  not  the 
cowards,  not  the  dissipated  wastrels — they  are 
not  taken.  The  slums  alone  have  not  been 
drained.  London  is  full  as  ever,  and  Liverpool, 
and  Manchester,  and  Sheffield,  and  the  Black 
Country,  and  Edinburgh,  and  Glasgow,  and  Dub- 
lin and  Belfast.  Their  down-and-out  still  shuffle 
about  the  streets.  The  toothless  degenerate  with 
the  loosened  jaw  is  not  enlisted.  The  coward 
quota  and  the  submerged  tenth  neither  line  the 
trenches  in  Belgium  nor  man  the  munition  fac- 
tories in  Britain.  All  of  their  ilk  may  breed 
after  their  kind  the  next  generation  of  the  Brit- 
ish race,  but  the  valorous,  the  strong-hearted, 
the  men  of  the  finer  strain,  must  take  the  risks 
with  the  bursting  shells  and  the  blowing  poison 
and  the  death ful  vigil  that  makes  them  old  be- 
fore their  time.  This  is  the  pride  and  the  glory 
of  Empire,  but  for  England,  for  Wales,  for 
Ireland,  for  Scotland,  it  is  the  age-long  and  mer- 
ciless toll  of  war. 

What  that  toll  meant  in  the  past  for  Britain 
and  how  terrible  its  meaning  in  the  days  at  hand, 


CANADA:  ITS  TETHER  AND  ITS  TOLL     219 

those  of  you  may  understand  who  have  seen  the 
waste  and  desolation  of  the  Scottish  moors  and 
glens.  I  have  made  the  rounds  from  west  to 
east  and  from  east  around  again  to  the  west. 
I  have  gone  through  the  Perthshire  Highlands 
when  the  war  pipes  sounded,  but  there  were  none 
to  answer  where  once  the  hills  re-echoed  the 
tramp  of  armed  men.  I  traversed  the  length  of 
Glenurquhart  that  sent  eight  hundred  kilted 
clansmen  to  battle  for  the  Prince  at  Culloden, 
but  when  the  call  came  from  Kitchener  for  the 
King  there  were  few  to  answer  for  the  Frasers 
of  Beauly,  for  the  Grants  of  Corrimony,  for  the 
Chisholms  of  Strathglass,  or  for  the  Macdonalds 
of  Glengarry.  I  stood  on  Craigellachie  in 
Strathspey,  and  in  fancy  could  see  Clan  Grant 
march  out  as  they  marched  to  Lucknow  in  the 
day  of  the  Mutiny,  but  the  clan  has  paid  its  toll 
in  full.  Lochiel  of  to-day  is  worthy  the  noblest 
of  his  sires,  but  the  clansmen  are  few  to  answer 
his  "Cameron's  Gathering"  through  the  snows 
of  Lochaber.  The  Mackenzies  are  gone  from 
Lochbroom.  The  Macleans  are  few  on  the 
Island  of  Mull,  and  fewer  still  are  the  Macleods 
of  Assynt  or  Harris.  The  Mackinnons  of  Skye 
have  gone  out  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  for  22,000 
Skye-men  wore  the  tartan  in  the  armies  of  Brit- 
ain. In  the  glens  of  Argyll  and  the  West  High- 
lands there  is  silence  deep  as  death  where  once 


220      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

a  thousand  Campbells  would  start  up  in  a  night, 
at  the  call  of  their  chief.  No  Lord  of  the  Isles 
who  sleeps  in  Iona  could  again  gather  a  clan 
worthy  his  tartan  though  he  blew  all  night  on  the 
pibroch  of  Donald. 

The  clans  have  paid  the  toll  of  war.  To-day 
in  Belgium  they  pay  in  even  fuller  measure  than 
a  hundred  years  ago  their  unreturning  brave  paid 
with  Wellington  at  Waterloo. 

And  to-day  and  to-morrow  Canada,  too,  must 
pay,  must  pay  in  full.  Already  before  the  Ca- 
nadian regiments  have  done  more  than  a  fair 
start,  the  Canadian  toll  is  heavier  than  all  the 
losses  the  entire  British  army  suffered  in  all  the 
campaigns  of  the  Crimean  War. 

But  whatever  the  toll,  it  must  be  yielded. 
Canada  will  not  draw  back.  For  freedom's  sake, 
and  for  justice,  and  for  the  rights  of  the  little 
peoples,  all  Canadians  are  pledged:  pledged  for 
our  last  dollar,  for  our  utmost  service,  for  our 
dearest  son:  pledged  to  Britain  and  pledged  to 
Belgium.    The  tether  holds. 

"We  may  drain  our  dearest  veins, 
But  they  shall  be  free." 


CHRISTIANITY:   THE  WAR:   THE 
SOCIAL  PROBLEM  * 

TWO  years  ago,  at  the  Los  Angeles  Interna- 
tional Convention,  I  gave  an  address  on 
"Jesus  and  the  Social  Problem."  In  that  address 
the  social  problem  was  defined  as  the  human  prob- 
lem of  living  together,  the  living  of  one  man  with 
another,  the  problem  of  men  and  women  and 
children  living  together  and  loving,  working 
together  and  playing,  in  the  same  social  order, 
and  making  their  individual  lives  worthy  and 
their  community  life  happy  and  just  and  free. 

In  the  face  of  the  bitterness  in  society,  and  as 
a  cure  for  the  wrongs  and  the  strife  at  that  time 
disturbing  industrial  life  all  over  America,  I 
urged  the  social  teaching  of  Jesus,  the  idea  of  a 
Christian  social  order,  in  which  social  service  is 
the  mark  of  individual  greatness,  and  social  love 
the  impulse  and  motive  to  all  service.  The  argu- 
ment took  a  wider  sweep  than  any  local  commu- 
nity, any  State,  or  any  nation.  The  social  prob- 
lem was  seen  to  be  a  world  problem :  the  problem 
of  a  world  neighbourhood  of  all  nations:  an 

♦An  Address  at  the  World's    Convention  of   Christian   En- 
deavor, The  Coliseum,  Chicago,  1915. 

221 


222      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

international  brotherhood  of  peoples  in  which 
war  and  the  arbitrament  of  armies  and  navies 
and  military  force  would  be  as  unthinkable  in 
Europe  as  they  now  are  between  the  United 
States  and  Canada  within  the  international  com- 
monwealth of  North  America. 

That  was  only  two  years  ago.  Now  comes  this 
World  Convention  of  Christian  Endeavour.  And 
what  a  change!  We  meet  under  the  world's 
blackest  horror,  a  world  war.  The  mad  clash  of 
the  nations  fills  the  sky.  The  fumes  of  their 
burning  hate  poison  the  air.  All  Europe  is  one 
vast  slaughter-house.  All  its  great  races,  Saxon 
and  Celt,  Teuton  and  Slav,  have  drawn  the 
sword,  and  stained  it  beyond  all  cleansing,  each 
in  another's  blood.  More  than  twenty  millions 
of  the  best  of  their  men  are  uniformed  and  armed 
for  war;  and  their  women  are  denied  even  the 
cruel  comfort  of  mourning  for  their  dead,  because 
the  anguish  of  their  wounded  is  in  their  hearts, 
and  the  on-coming  tramp  of  their  youngest  sons 
doomed  to  die  is  in  their  ears. 

And  not  Europe  alone.  Not  Britain  and  Bel- 
gium, not  France  and  Italy,  not  Russia  and  the 
Balkans,  whose  wounds  from  other  wars  and 
massacres  are  still  unhealed — not  these  alone. 
And  not  alone  Germany  and  Austria  and  Turkey. 
Over  Asia  the  blood-red  sword  has  swept,  and 
through  Egypt  and  the  heart  of  Africa,  and 


CHRISTIANITY:  WAR:  SOCIAL  PROBLEM  223 

round  by  the  island  continent  of  the  sea.  And 
America,  too.  In  spite  of  all  the  promises  of 
independence,  all  our  boasts  of  international  civi- 
lisation, all  our  achievements  of  a  hundred  years 
of  Anglo-American  peace,  and  all  our  pride  in 
the  peaceful  leadership  of  the  world — yes,  North 
America,  too.  Canada  is  plunged  into  the  very 
thick  of  Europe's  carnage,  and  the  United  States, 
neutral  in  form  and  voice,  is  fearful  every  day 
lest  the  fateful  mine  be  sprung. 

And  in  the  midst  of  this  Armageddon  of  Chris- 
tendom we  meet  in  this  World  Convention  of 
Christian  Endeavour!  Christian,  indeed!  And 
Christendom!  What  a  mockery  it  all  seems. 
What  wonder  if  the  finger  points  to  France  and 
to  Flanders,  to  crucified  Poland  and  to  Galicia," 
to  the  English  Channel  and  to  the  Dardanelles. 
Christian,  forsooth !  What  wonder  if  the  accuser 
sneers  at  your  Christian  Endeavour  and  mocks 
your  Christianity : 

"Great  God!    I'd  rather  be 
A  pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn; 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less 
forlorn." 

And  yet — and  yet!  The  foundations  of  God 
stand  sure.  The  social  gospel  of  Jesus  is  vindi- 
cated by  the  very  war-agony  of  the  world.    Out 


224     DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS    ' 

of  the  mouth  of  the  brute- force  paganism  of  war 
that  has  failed  comes  terrible  testimony  for  the 
brotherhood  socialism  of  Christ  that  has  not  yet 
been  tried.  It  is  with  this  conviction,  and  with 
an  emphasis  peace  never  could  give,  I  present 
again  the  social  program  of  Christ,  and  appeal 
for  a  world  endeavour  to  make  dominant  in  world 
politics  the  undisproved  socialism  of  Jesus. 

THE    SOCIALISM    OP    JESUS 

The  Socialism  of  Jesus !  Let  there  be  no  mis- 
take. If  the  power  of  socialism  has  been  dis- 
proved by  the  fact  of  war  it  was  not  the  Socialism 
of  Jesus.  If  Christianity  has  collapsed  it  was  not 
the  Christianity  of  Christ.  If  democracy  has 
been  destroyed  it  was  not  the  democracy  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Names  and  forms  and  false 
philosophies  may  have  gone  into  the  fire  and  been 
consumed.  But  the  realities  are  unscathed :  they 
stand  purified,  ennobled,  invincible. 

The  Socialism  of  Jesus  is  something  more,  far 
more,  than  any  philosophy  of  wealth,  any  theory 
of  the  hours  of  work  or  of  the  rate  of  wages.  It 
is  something  more  than  any  conflict  between  the 
Haves  and  the  Have-nots,  any  assault  on  the  in- 
stitutions of  society,  or  any  drawing  of  a  gun  on 
the  multi-millionaire. 

The  Socialism  of  Jesus  has  to  do,  not  so  much 


CHRISTIANITY:  WAR:  SOCIAL  PROBLEM  225 

with  the  outward  conditions  and  external  forms 
of  life,  as  with  its  inward  spirit,  its  conscious  aim, 
and  its  impelling  motive.  It  stands  against  the 
selfish  individualism  that  says :  "Every  man  for 
himself  and  the  deil  tak'  the  hindermost."  It 
rebukes  the  ambition  of  Cain  for  a  place  in  the 
sun  for  himself  alone,  and  it  refuses  his  mur- 
derous self-defence,  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?" 
It  condemns  the  social  parasites,  both  the  idle  rich 
and  the  vagrant  poor,  and  it  insists  that  no  man 
shall  eat  bread  by  the  sweat  of  another  man's 
face.  It  makes  a  place  in  the  social  order  for 
every  one  who  serves,  and  gives  to  each  according 
to  his  need,  and  requires  from  each  according  to 
his  power.  It  asserts  on  the  one  side  that  the 
labourer  is  worthy  of  his  hire,  and  it  demands, 
on  the  other  side,  that  servants  obey  their  mas- 
ters, not  with  eye-service,  but  in  the  obedience 
of  loyalty  to  their  Divine  Master.  When  em- 
ployers of  labour  arrange  to  make  the  wages  rea- 
sonably adequate  to  meet  the  cost  of  honest  living 
they  are  observing  the  Socialism  of  Jesus  as 
illustrated  in  the  case  of  the  handicapped  elev- 
enth-hour labourer  in  the  vineyard,  who,  in  spite 
of  his  restricted  opportunity  for  service,  was  paid 
at  the  close  of  the  day  the  minimum  living  wage. 
In  dealing  with  the  social  problem,  the  prob- 
lem of  living  together  and  working  together,  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  not  only  justify  the  funda- 


226      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

mental  principles  of  modern  social  democracy, 
but  they  suggest  a  radicalism  far  more  penetrat- 
ing, far  more  revolutionary,  than  is  urged  in  the 
political  economy  and  worked  out  in  the  reform 
programs  of  the  social  philosophers  and  econo- 
mists of  Germany  or  France,  of  Britain  or 
America. 

Jesus  goes  their  way,  but  He  goes  very  much 
farther.  His  teaching  would  reconstruct  the  so- 
cial order  and  revolutionise  the  industrial  world. 
His  goal  includes  not  only  juster  rewards  for 
work  and  humaner  conditions  for  the  worker,  but 
also  a  higher  type  of  personal  character  and  a 
nobler  motive  in  social  service;  not  only  a  full 
dinner-pail,  but  a  fuller  and  richer  life.  To  Him 
men  are  not  dead  cogs  in  the  grinding  machine  of 
industry,  but  spiritual  units  in  the  social  democ- 
racy of  the  brotherhood  of  service.  To  Him  the 
great  ones  are  not  those  who  lord  it  over  the  help- 
less or  the  undefended,  but  those  who,  because 
they  are  strong,  bear  the  burdens  of  the  weak, 
and  because  they  are  free  make  themselves  the 
very  servants  and  saviours  of  those  who  are 
bound.  For  self-interest  He  substitutes  social 
interest,  and  in  the  place  of  selfishness  or  com- 
pulsion or  even  hard  duty  He  makes  love  the  com- 
pelling motive  in  all  service. 

In  the  reconstructed  State  this  is  the  first  and 
great  commandment:    "Thou  shalt  love."    The 


CHRISTIANITY:  WAR:  SOCIAL  PROBLEM  887 

distinction  and  badge  of  the  Christian  society 
and  of  the  Christian  nation  is  the  same  the  world 
over  and  for  all  the  ages :  "All  men  shall  know 
that  ye  are  my  disciples  if  ye  love  one  another." 
In  the  days  when  peace — it  may  be  "armed  peace" 
— holds  the  nations  in  check  the  Christian  com- 
mandment is:  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour 
as  thyself."  And  when  war  bids  defiance  to  in- 
ternational law,  and  makes  treaties  only  scraps 
of  paper,  and  does  violence  to  all  the  instincts  of 
humanity,  the  Socialism  of  Jesus  still  stands :  "I 
say  unto  you,  love  your  enemies." 

IS  IT  UTOPIAN? 

This  idea  of  social  justice  and  social  service 
and  social  love,  whether  in  the  local  community 
or  among  the  nations,  is  declared  to  be  Utopian, 
a  fine  fancy  but  nothing  more,  a  pleasant  dream, 
but  doomed  to  disappointment.  We  are  told  it 
would  involve  a  transformation  of  human  na- 
ture. And  we  are  assured,  as  with  the  finality 
of  scientific  law,  that  human  nature  never 
changes. 

But  Jesus  is  no  unpractical  day  dreamer.  He 
looked  with  unwinking  eyes  into  the  deep  recesses 
of  human  nature.  He  was  blind  to  no  essential 
fact.  He  misjudged  no  social  obstacle.  He 
knew  the  human  mind  was  perverted  from  truth, 


228      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

and  the  human  heart  poisoned  against  love.  He 
recognised  the  impossibility  of  selfishness  and 
carnalism  inheriting  the  kingdom  of  God.  His 
biological  imperative  is  absolute:  "Ye  must  be 
born  again.  Except  a  man  be  born  anew  he  can- 
not see  the  kingdom  of  God."  No  maxim  of 
science  is  more  unflinching,  more  uncompromis- 
ing, than  is  that  "must"  of  the  new  birth. 

But  to  the  shallow  thinker,  to  the  hopeless  fa- 
talist, the  attested  verdict  of  spiritual  biology,  at- 
tested not  by  the  dogmatic  ipse  dixit  of  some 
theorist,  but  proved  a  million  times  over  in  the 
white  heat  and  white  light  of  the  great  laboratory 
of  life — the  demonstrated  verdict  of  life's  great 
experiment  is  this :  "If  any  man  is  in  Christ  he 
is  a  new  creation ;  old  things  are  passed  away,  and 
all  things  are  become  new."  A  new  creation!  A 
new  man!  New  ideals!  New  loves!  New  am- 
bitions! New  motives!  Human  nature  does 
change.  It  changes  in  its  innermost  impulses  and 
instincts,  and  hopes,  and  fears,  and  loves,  and 
hates.  Men  are  born  again.  All  history  attests 
that  races  do  rise,  that  civilisations  are  changed, 
and,  when  this  black  night  of  anguish  is  lifted, 
out  of  the  birth-pangs  of  the  world  a  nation  shall 
be  born  in  a  day. 

Every  pessimist  sneers  "Utopia !"  Every  un- 
believer cries  "Idealist!"  But  such  mocking  does 
not  come  from  the  truly  great  men,  the  men  great 


CHRISTIANITY:  WAR:  SOCIAL  PROBLEM  229 

in  the  world's  affairs.  Again  and  again,  during 
the  past  awful  twelvemonth,  the  Prime  Minister 
of  Britain — and  for  such  a  time  as  this  Britain 
never  had  a  greater  than  Premier  Asquith — laid 
down  three  requisites  for  peace  in  Europe.  First 
is  the  renunciation  of  militarism  and  brute  force 
as  a  factor  in  the  relations  of  European  nations ; 
the  second  is  the  integrity  and  freedom  of  the 
little  nationalities  and  the  weaker  States,  Bel- 
gium, and  Holland,  and  Denmark,  and  the  Scan- 
dinavian countries,  and  Greece,  and  the  Balkan 
States ;  the  third  is  the  abandonment  of  all  threat- 
ening alliances  and  all  menacing  Balance  of 
Power,  and  in  their  place  the  establishment  of  a 
"real  European  partnership,"  based  on  the  equal 
rights  of  all  and  secured  and  maintained  by  the 
common  will. 

In  Canada  and  in  the  United  States  such  con- 
ditions of  peace,  such  a  proposal  for  a  real  Euro- 
pean partnership  based  on  the  equal  rights  of  all 
the  peoples  and  secured  by  the  common  will  of  all 
the  nations — such  a  peace  is  derided  as  Utopian 
by  the  jingoes  and  the  militarists  in  America  to- 
day. But  what  says  Premier  Asquith,  himself 
the  foremost  British  statesman  of  this  genera- 
tion ?    Here  are  his  very  words : 

"A  year  ago  that  proposal  would  have 
sounded  like  a  Utopian  idea.    It  is  probably 


330      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

one  that  may  not  or  will  not  be  realised  to- 
day or  to-morrow ;  but  if  and  when  this  war 
is  decided  in  favour  of  the  allies  it  will  at 
once  come  within  the  range  and  before  long 
within  the  grasp  of  European  statesman- 
ship." 

"Utopia!"  sneers  your  unbelieving  pessimist. 
"European  statesmanship!"  answers  Mr.  As- 
quith. 

THE    ALTERNATIVES 

The  world  after  the  war  shall  have  to  face 
again  its  age-long  social  problem :  the  problem  of 
living  together  and  working  together — the  war- 
ring classes  in  a  common  industrial  order,  the 
warring  nations  in  a  common  world.  And  what 
are  the  alternatives?  If  it  is  not  to  be  what  Mr. 
Asquith  calls  a  "real  partnership,"  what  shall  it 
be?  Shall  the  spirit  be  the  Christ  spirit  of  social 
love  and  cooperation,  or  the  Devil  spirit  of  hate 
and  cut- throat  competition?  One  thing  is  cer- 
tain :  Not  again  in  this  generation,  not  again  in 
this  century,  shall  the  world  deceive  itself  with 
the  self-contradiction  called  "armed  peace." 
That  fallacy  at  least  has  had  its  day.  Armed 
peace  has  proved  itself  inevitable  war. 

But  if  not  Christ,  then  whom?  If  not  Chris- 
tianity, then  what?  The  only  alternatives  are 
Caesar  and  Caesarism.    Caesarism  the  world  has 


CHRISTIANITY:  WAR:  SOCIAL  PROBLEM  231 

tried  again  and  again.  In  ancient  Rome,  and  the 
Empire  fell.  In  Napoleonic  France,  and  the 
Empire  fell.  Is  it  a  success  in  Europe  to-day? 
Let  the  world  answer. 

And  would  it  save  the  world  were  Corsica  to 
triumph  over  Galilee  ?  Would  peace  return  after 
the  war,  and  would  the  world  be  blessed,  were 
Csesarism  to  wield  the  sceptre  of  the  new  Russia, 
or  were  Japan  to  lead  the  awakening  Orient  in 
the  worship  of  "Will-to-Power"  and  not  of  "Will- 
to-Serve"?  Or  were  Britain  and  France  and 
Italy  to  turn  again  to  the  Divine  Right  despotism 
from  which  they  escaped?  Or  were  America  to 
renounce  its  Christianised  internationalism,  and 
to  exchange  its  four  thousand  miles  of  North 
American  disarmament  for  the  fortified  and 
blood-soaked  boundaries  of  Europe? 

These  are  the  world's  alternatives.  Choose 
you  this  day  whom  you  will  serve.  Choose 
for  yourselves;  choose  for  your  workshops  and 
offices  and  places  of  business;  choose  for  your 
nations  and  for  the  world  your  convention  rep- 
resents. If  Baal  be  God,  serve  him;  the  only  al- 
ternative is  Jehovah.  If  Caesar  be  God,  serve 
him;  the  only  alternative  is  Christ.  But  if  Chris- 
tian brotherhood  is  worth  while,  work  for  it;  its 
only  alternative  is  strife  and  social  war.  If  what 
the  war  lord  calls  "Utopia"  is  good,  fight  for  it; 
its  only  alternative  is  Hell. 


NORTH  AMERICA'S  INTERNATIONAL 
EXPERIMENT  * 

NORTH  AMERICA,  like  ancient  Gaul,  is  di- 
vided into  three  parts. 

The  centre  is  held  by  the  greatest  republic  on 
the  map  of  all  the  world,  covering,  with  Alaska 
included,  3,560,922  square  miles  and  numbering 
a  hundred  millions  of  people:  the  United  States 
of  America.  To  the  south  lies  a  country  of  767,- 
005  square  miles,  claiming  fifteen  millions  of 
people,  ruled  over  at  one  time  by  an  Emperor, 
at  another  time  by  a  President,  but  always  by  a 
dictator,  and  never  long  without  a  rebellion,  rev- 
olution or  war :  the  so-called  Republic  of  Mexico. 
On  the  north  stands  the  youngest  of  the  three, 
stretching  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  North 
Pole,  and  from  Labrador  to  Vancouver  Island, 
comprising  3,729,665  square  miles  and  holding 
eight  millions  of  people:  the  Dominion  of  Can- 
ada. 

These  three,  each  with  its  own  flag,  its  own 
political  heritage  and  its  own  national  ideal,  con- 
stitute the  unique  trinity  of  North  America.  The 

*  An  Address  at  the  World  Congress  on  Internationalism,  San 
Francisco,  1915. 

232 


NORTH  AMERICA'S  EXPERIMENT     *8S 

national  history  of  the  oldest  is  less  than  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half,  and  of  the  youngest  less  than  a 
half  century.  As  compared  with  European  his- 
tory North  America  is  but  of  yesterday;  and  yet 
North  America  presents  an  international  experi- 
ment without  parallel  elsewhere  in  all  the  world : 
an  international  achievement  that  gives  war- 
stricken  Europe  of  to-day  a  chance  and  a  hope 
for  a  better  to-morrow. 

THE  LIBERTY  BEU, 

In  this  great  Exposition,  that  has  gathered  so 
much  of  the  wonder  and  wealth  of  the  world, 
there  is  no  object  of  greater  historical  interest  or 
of  profounder  international  veneration  than  that 
focal  point  of  attraction  in  the  Pennsylvania 
Building,  where  the  flowers  are  always  fresh 
and  the  crowds  are  always  large — the  Liberty 
Bell. 

On  its  journey  across  the  continent  from  In- 
dependence Hall  in  Philadelphia,  the  Liberty  Bell 
of  this  American  Republic  was  greeted,  at  every 
point,  with  the  high  and  reverent  acclaim  of  all 
the  people.  It  was  as  when  in  the  days  of 
Israel's  renaissance  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant 
was  brought  up,  with  sacrificial  hand  and  grate- 
ful praise,  from  the  house  of  Obed-edom  to  the 
sanctuary  and  meeting  place  of  the  tribes.     So 


234      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

now  at  this  place  of  convocation  for  all  the  world, 
on  the  shore  of  the  western  sea,  fronting  the 
Golden  Gate,  the  Liberty  Bell  is  again  set  up. 
Around  it  press,  day  after  day,  unnumbered  citi- 
zens not  of  this  nation  alone  but  of  all  nations. 
They  stand  with  uncovered  heads  as  in  the  pres- 
ence of  this  nation's  history.  They  read  its  date, 
1776,  and  hear  again  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. 

The  Liberty  Bell  is  in  very  truth  the  Ark  of 
the  Covenant:  the  symbol  and  the  seal  of  Amer- 
ica's covenant  with  the  God  of  Nations:  the 
pledge,  America's  graven  pledge  to  all  the 
world,  that  this  Republic,  from  sea  to  sea,  for 
all  time,  and  over  all  the  world,  shall  stand  for 
liberty,  not  for  itself  alone,  but  for  the  liberty 
of  every  people,  the  defender  of  the  innocent 
weak  against  the  arrogant  strong,  the  advocate 
and  guardian  of  Liberty  and  Justice  and  Honour 
for  all  humanity.  So  long  as  the  people  of  this 
Republic  keep  inviolate  the  pledge  of  Liberty,  so 
long  will  the  Liberty  Bell  represent  without  re- 
buke the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  for  this  American 
nation. 

And  not  for  Americans  alone.  The  Liberty 
Bell  means  too  much,  its  history  runs  too  far 
back,  its  message  rings  too  wide,  for  its  mean- 
ing to  be  closed  in  by  any  national  boundaries 
or  under  any  national  flag.    I  stand  here,  in  this 


NORTH  AMERICA'S  EXPERIMENT      235 

"Court  of  the  Universe,"  under  the  Stars  and 
Stripes,  a  citizen  of  Canada.  The  flag  of  my 
allegiance  is  of  an  Empire  that  belts  the  world. 
And,  in  the  name  of  all  who  speak  the  language 
Shakespeare  spoke,  I  claim  a  share  in  the  ven- 
eration paid  the  Liberty  Bell. 

The  metal  of  that  bell  was  brought  from  far 
beyond  the  sea.  Into  it  was  burned  the  molten 
history  of  London  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years.  The  note  of  its  liberty  was  struck  more 
than  fifteen  centuries  ago  by  the  primitive  An- 
glo-Saxons in  the  dark  forests  of  northern  Ger- 
many and  around  the  mouth  of  the  Elbe.  The 
voice  of  the  Liberty  Bell  is  the  strong  voice  of 
Anglo-American  democracy. 

Through  all  the  centuries  of  the  English 
speech  that  voice  of  liberty  and  democracy  has 
sounded  over  all  the  hard  cries  of  despotism  and 
mastership.  It  was  heard  at  Runnymede.  It 
ordered  the  crown  from  the  head  of  more  than 
one  King.  It  spoke  through  Hampden  and  Pym 
long  before  it  touched  the  lips  of  Washington 
and  Jefferson.  In  America,  it  spoke  the  free- 
dom of  three  million  slaves  in  Lincoln's  day,  and 
in  Britain  it  took  democracy's  most  splendid  risk 
when  in  our  day  it  annulled  the  veto  power  of 
the  House  of  Lords. 

As  in  the  day  when  the  Liberty  Bell  first  rang 
out  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  so  to-day 


236      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

the  voice  of  Anglo-American  democracy, 
through  the  two  English-speaking  nations  of 
North  America,  declares  again  and  to  all  the 
world,  that  any  people  anywhere  who  desire  to 
be  free  and  are  fit  to  be  free  shall  be  given  free- 
dom's unfettered  chance. 


MEXICO'S  BEU,  AND  DECLARATION 

But  Mexico  also  has  her  Liberty  Bell  and  her 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

Five  years  ago,  from  the  balcony  of  the  Na- 
tional Palace  in  Mexico  City,  I  looked  out  over 
half  a  million  madly  patriotic  Mexicans  crowd- 
ing the  Zocalo  from  the  Treasury  to  the  Cathe- 
dral, overflowing  into  all  the  avenues,  and  filling 
all  the  sky  with  their  jubilating  vivas.  It  was 
the  night  of  the  16th  of  September,  the  one  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  Declaration  of  Mex- 
ican Independence.  On  the  balcony,  surveying 
the  multitudes  who  cried  their  vivas  in  his  hon- 
our that  night,  but  would  soon  cry  their  anathe- 
mas, stood  the  aged  President  whose  dictator 
throne  was  tottering  to  a  fall.  As  the  historic 
hour  of  eleven  struck,  Diaz  rang  the  very  same 
bell  that  a  hundred  years  before,  at  that  very 
moment,  the  priest  Hidalgo  rang  from  the  church 
tower  at  Dolores,  and  repeated  Hidalgo's  his- 
toric grito: 


NORTH  AMERICA'S  EXPERIMENT     237 

Viva  la  Independencia ! 
Viva  Mexico ! 


That  was  Mexico's  Liberty  Bell.  That  was 
Mexico's  Declaration  of  Independence.  If  bells 
and  declarations  and  flags  and  vivas  mean  free- 
dom, then  Mexico  is  free.  If  independence 
means  a  fair  chance  for  a  country  to  make  or  to 
mar  itself,  then  Mexico  is  independent.  No 
other  flag  has  threatened  the  "Red,  White  and 
Green"  of  Mexico.  Neither  of  the  other  na- 
tions of  North  America  has  interfered.  And  yet 
from  that  night  when  Diaz  rang  the  Liberty  Bell 
five  years  ago  until  this  very  hour  there  has  been 
no  peace  anywhere  in  all  the  land,  property  has 
not  been  secure  in  any  of  its  Provinces,  life  has 
not  been  safe  in  any  of  its  cities. 

Mexico  has  a  name  to  be  free  but  is  bound. 
It  makes  pretence  at  independence,  but  is  en- 
slaved. It  calls  itself  a  Republic,  but  is  a  Chaos. 
It  holds  the  place  of  a  nation  but  it  has  no  na- 
tional ideal,  no  national  consciousness,  no  na- 
tional unity,  no  national  life.  By  geography  it 
belongs  to  North  America  and  by  chronology  to 
the  twentieth  century,  but  its  life  is  European 
and  its  political  era  is  still  the  Middle  Ages.  Its 
Liberty  Bell  rings  no  liberty  and  its  independ- 
ence is  still  to  be  won.  Mexico,  as  yet,  has  no 
part  or  lot  in  North  America's  experiment. 


238      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

NO  BEU,:    NO  DECLARATION 

Canada  came  third  in  North  America's  march 
to  nationalism  and  self-government.  But  Can- 
ada has  no  Liberty  Bell  and  no  Declaration  of 
Independence. 

This  is  indeed  one  of  the  marvels  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  one  of  the  unique  and  unprece- 
dented achievements  in  North  America's  his- 
tory :  a  country  coming  up  from  colonial  depend- 
ence to  national  self-government,  not  by  revolu- 
tion, but  by  evolution ;  not  by  war  and  estrange- 
ment, but  by  development  and  co-operation: 
a  nation  growing  up  out  of  a  colony,  as  an  oak 
grows  out  of  an  acorn:  a  nation  that  had  no 
occasion  for  a  Liberty  Bell,  and  that,  developing 
into  self-government,  as  a  youth  developes  into 
mature  manhood,  had  no  need  to  make  formal 
declaration  of  its  independence.  That  is  Can- 
ada's contribution  to  the  higher  politics  of  North 
America. 

The  American  colonies  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury declared  to  the  world  the  right  of  a  free 
people  to  govern  themselves;  and  this  free 
American  Republic  is  the  fulfilment  of  that  dec- 
laration. In  the  nineteenth  century  the  remain- 
ing colonies  and  territories  of  North  America 
achieved  self-government  without  revolution  and 
without  sacrificing  the  historic  background  of 


NORTH  AMERICA'S  EXPERIMENT     239 

the  nation;  and  the  free,  self-governing  Domin- 
ion of  Canada  is  the  evidence  of  that  achieve- 
ment. 

Canada's  national  achievement  led  the  way  to 
national  freedom  and  self-government  for  Aus- 
tralia and  for  New  Zealand  and  for  South 
Africa;  and  out  of  that  new  nationalism  there 
grew  the  establishment  of  the  British  Empire 
on  a  new  basis,  the  basis  not  of  imperialism,  but 
of  democracy:  not  an  empire  with  its  centralized 
imperium,  but  a  commonwealth  with  its  free 
States:  free  States,  glorying  not  alone  in  their 
independence,  but  in  their  interdependence:  self- 
governing  nations,  boasting  not  their  nationalism 
alone,  but  their  internationalism.  And  out  of  it 
all  there  has  emerged  a  world  commonwealth, 
comprising  more  than  one-quarter  of  the  land 
area  of  all  the  world,  over  which  floats  one  flag. 
On  that  one  flag  each  free  nation  inscribes  its 
own  emblem.  Each  of  those  national  emblems 
means  national  sovereignty.  The  combined  sov- 
ereignty of  all  those  national  emblems  means 
good-will  and  peace  among  more  than  four  hun- 
dred millions  of  the  human  race,  building  their 
democracies  on  all  the  continents,  floating  their 
commerce  on  all  the  seas,  and  out  of  every  color 
and  class  and  race  and  creed  vitalising  one 
brotherhood  of  nations  wherever  the  British  en- 
sign floats.    That  is  the  international  achieve- 


240      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

ment  on  a  world  scale  which  Canada  represents 
on  this  North  American  continent. 

And  the  United  States  has  on  its  hands  a 
colonial  experiment,  which,  by  the  logic  of 
events,  may  evolve  an  illustration  in  internation- 
alism under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  not  unlike  that 
which  Canada  represents  under  the  Union  Jack. 
Fortune,  whether  the  good  fortune  of  peace  or 
the  bad  fortune  of  war,  has  given  the  United 
States  responsibility  in  the  administration  and 
government  of  the  Philippines.  I  make  no  com- 
ments. I  pass  no  judgment.  But  if  and  when 
the  United  States  has  led  the  Filipinos  along  the 
path  of  liberty  and  democracy  to  the  goal  of  re- 
sponsible self-government,  as  the  people  of  Can- 
ada, of  Australia,  of  New  Zealand  and  of  South 
Africa  have  been  led,  I  as  a  Canadian  shall  not 
regret,  rather  shall  I  greatly  rejoice,  if  over  a 
free  nation  of  Filipinos  there  waves  the  Stars 
and  Stripes,  as  over  the  free  overseas  Dominions 
of  Britain  there  waves  the  Union  Jack. 

AN  INTERNATIONAL  EXPERIMENT 

But  the  greatest  thing  North  America  has 
done,  the  thing  which  puts  into  visible  and  con- 
crete form  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  this  Inter- 
national Congress,  is  the  joint  achievement  of 
these  two  nations,  the  United  States  and  Can- 


NORTH  AMERICA'S  EXPERIMENT     241 

ada.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  from 
the  Pacific  across  to  the  Arctic,  there  stretches 
an  international  boundary  line  of  4,000  miles, 
where  territory  touches  territory,  where  sover- 
eignty meets  sovereignty,  where  nation  salutes 
nation,  but  for  a  hundred  years  the  international 
waters  of  those  Great  Lakes  have  been  unfretted 
by  any  ship  of  war,  those  rolling  prairies  have 
been  unmarked  by  any  hostile  fort,  those  majes- 
tic mountains  have  never  echoed  to  the  roar  of 
any  alien  gun. 

Four  thousand  miles !  For  one  hundred  years ! 
Tell  me,  you  men  from  other  continents,  where 
in  all  the  world  is  there  a  match  for  this  that 
North  America  has  done  ?  Where  is  there  a  civ- 
ilisation so  undishonoured  ?  Where  is  there  a 
boundary  so  free?  Where  is  there  a  history  so 
worthy  of  record?    Let  Europe  answer. 

Europe !  from  whom  we  inherited  our  civilisa- 
tion, whose  two  thousand  years  is  our  back- 
ground, whose  achievements  were  our  inspira- 
tion. Europe!  whose  Christianity  is  in  our 
creeds,  whose  culture  is  in  our  colleges,  whose 
heart's  blood  is  in  our  veins !  Europe !  bristling 
with  guns  from  the  Hebrides  to  the  Dardanelles, 
bleeding  at  every  boundary  with  death-wounds 
none  can  stanch — O  Europe!  how  often  would 
America  have  come  to  you  with  the  gospel  of 
international  good-will,  teaching  you  the  secret 


242      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

of  Anglo-American  peace,  proving  to  you  the 
power  of  international  disarmament,  and  helping 
to  gather  your  shattered  nationalities  into  a 
United  States  of  Europe!  How  often!  But  ye 
would  not.  Now,  no  matter  who  among  you  is 
to  blame,  we,  too,  must  suffer  in  your  agony. 
The  national  peace  of  this  American  Republic 
is  threatened  by  your  madness.  The  best  red 
blood  of  the  Canadian  Dominion  is  being  soaked 
into  your  battlefields  because  of  the  blood-guilti- 
ness of  your  sin. 

AFTER  THE  W0RI.D-ST0RM 

But  when  this  world-storm  of  Europe  is  past, 
when  this  red  rain  has  enriched  the  roots  of 
Europe's  next  verdure,  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  their  common  democracy  made  stronger 
by  their  common  experiences,  shall  come  again 
into  the  council  chamber  of  the  nations,  and, 
with  the  released  democracies  of  the  warring 
peoples  of  Europe,  shall  speak  the  doom  of  the 
autocrats  and  the  despots  and  the  war  lords  and 
all  that  damning  system  of  militarism  that  has 
cursed  Europe  for  two  thousand  years. 

Before  this  world-war  is  over  these  two  free 
democracies  of  North  America  shall  have  paid 
the  price  of  war ;  it  may  be  they  shall  have  paid 
it  in  full,  and  it  may  be  the  United  States  as 


NORTH  AMERICA'S  EXPERIMENT     243 

well  as  Canada  shall  have  paid  it  in  blood.  And 
then,  not  the  United  States  and  Canada  alone, 
but  all  the  democratic  nations  the  world  over, 
shall  have  something  to  say  to  the  war  lords. 
And  they  will  insist  that  the  world  is  too  small 
for  war  lords  or  for  war;  that  in  the  world 
neighbourhood  of  civilised  nations  there  shall  be 
no  longer  any  room  for  the  wild  beasts  of  Eu- 
rope's war  jungle,  and  that  the  broken-down 
war-nationalisms  of  Europe  shall  give  place  to 
North  America's  international  experiment. 

And  this  is  North  America's  prophetic  voca- 
tion; this  is  the  high  calling  wherewith  North 
America  is  called:  not  any  proud  boasting  that 
America  is  better  than  Europe,  that  "I  am  holier 
than  thou,"  that  our  hand-breadth  of  political 
history  has  nothing  to  learn  from  Europe's  strug- 
gle through  the  ages.    Not  that. 

North  America  at  best  is  only  Europe's  sec- 
ond chance.  The  seeds  of  our  harvests  of  lib- 
erty and  peace  were  carried  to  our  shores  from 
the  historic  fields  of  Britain,  from  France,  too, 
and  the  Netherlands,  from  the  sunny  slopes  of 
Italy  and  the  Alpine  glens,  from  the  shadows  of 
Bohemia  and  the  valley  of  the  Rhine.  We  are 
the  heirs  of  all  the  ages.  The  faggots  of  Eu- 
rope's martyrdoms  kindled  the  fires  of  liberty  for 
us.  It  is  not  for  us  to  boast.  Rather  must  we 
heed  the  prophet  call,  and  share  with  Europe, 


244      DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  NATIONS 

man  with  man  and  nation  with  nation,  the  in- 
finite tragedy  of  this  time. 

North  America's  international  experiment  had 
not  been  possible  but  for  the  age-long  heroisms 
of  Europe  that  seemed  to  fail.  And  our  great 
experiment  in  civilised  internationalism  would 
even  yet  fail  of  its  full  achievement  were  there 
in  Europe  to-day  no  heroes  ready  to  suffer,  no 
million  martyrs  ready  to  die,  that  Law  shall 
reign  among  all  the  nations,  that  Justice  shall 
come  to  all  the  world,  and  that  any  people  any- 
where who  desire  to  be  free  and  are  fit  to  be  free 
shall  be  given  Freedom's  unfettered  chance. 


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